LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


PRESENTED  BY 


ROBERT  L.  CASHMAN 


**•*- 


'Boljlctt  Lectures  1879 


INFLUENCE  OF  JESUS 


BY    THE 

RT.  REV.  PHILLIPS    BROOKS,  D.D. 


DELIVERED  IN  THE  CHURCH  OF  THE  HOLY  TRINITY,  PHILA- 
DELPHIA, IN  FEBRUARY,  1879 


NEW   YORK 

E.  P.   DUTTON  &   COMPANY 
31  WEST  TWENTY-THIED  ST. 

1893 

\-~J 


Copyright, 
By   E.    P.   DUTTOM  &  Cc. 


THE  JOHN   BOHLEN   LECTURESHIP. 


JOHN  BOHLEN,  who  died  in  this  city  on  the  26th 
day  of  April,  1874,  bequeathed  to  trustees  a  fund  of 
One  Hundred  Thousand  Dollars,  to  be  distributed 
to  religious  and  charitable  objects  in  accordance  with 
the  well-known  wishes  of  the  testator. 

By  a  deed  of  trust,  executed  June  2,  1875,  the 
trustees  under  the  will  of  Mr.  Bohlen  transferred  and 
paid  over  to  "  The  Rector,  Church  Wardens,  and  Ves- 
trymen of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  Phila- 
delphia," in  trust,  a  sum  of  money  for  certain  desig- 
nated purposes,  out  of  which  fund  the  sum  of  Ten 
Thousand  Dollars  was  set  apart  for  the  endowment 
of  THE  JOHN  BOHLEN  LECTURESHIP,  upon  the  fol- 
lowing terms  and  conditions  :  — 

The  money  shall  be  invested  in  good  substantial  and 
safe  securities,  and  held  in  trust  for  a  fund  to  be  called 
The  John  Bohlen  Lectureship,  and  the  income  shall  be 
applied  annually  to  the  payment  of  a  qualified  person, 
whether  clergyman  or  layman,  for  the  delivery  and  publi- 
cation of  at  least  one  hundred  copies  of  two  or  more 
lecture  sermons.  These  Lectures  shall  be  delivered  at 
such  time  and  place,  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  as  the 
persons  nominated  to  appoint  the  lecturer  shall  from  time 
to  time  determine,  giving  at  least  six  months  notice  to 


vi  The  Bohlcn  Lectureship. 

the  person  appointed  to  deliver  the  same,  when  the  same 
may  conveniently  be  clone,  and  in  no  case  selecting  the 
same  person  as  lecturer  a  second  time  within  a  period  of 
five  years.  The  payment  shall  be  made  to  said  lecturer, 
after  the  lectures  have  been  printed  and  received  by  the 
trustees,  of  all  the  income  for  the  year  derived  from  said 
fund,  after  defraying  the  expense  of  printing  the  lectures 
and  the  other  incidental  expenses  attending  the  same. 

The  subject  of  such  lectures  shall  be  such  as  is 
within  the  terms  set  forth  in  the  will  of  the  Rev.  John 
Bampton,  for  the  delivery  of  what  are  known  as  the 
''  Bampton  Lectures,"  at  Oxford,  or  any  other  subject 
distinctively  connected  with  or  relating  to  the  Christian 
Religion. 

The  lecturer  shall  be  appointed  annually  in  the  month 
of  May,  or  as  soon  thereafter  as  can  conveniently  be  done, 
by  the  persons,  who  for  the  time  being,  shall  hold  the 
offices  of  Bishop  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of 
the  Diocese  in  which  is  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Trinity ; 
the  Rector  of  said  Church ;  the  Professor  of  Biblical 
Learning,  the  Professor  of  Systematic  Divinity,  and  the 
Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History,  in  the  Divinity  School 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  Philadelphia. 

In  case  either  of  said  offices  are  vacant  the  others  may 
nominate  the  lecturer. 


Under  this  trust  the  Rev.  PHILLIPS  BROOKS,  S.T.D., 
of  Boston,  was  appointed  to  deliver  the  lectures  for 
the  year  1879. 

PHILADELPHIA,  Easter,  1879. 


\ 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURE    I.  PAGB 

The  Influence  of  Jesus  on  the  Moral  Life  of  Mar.   .        9 


LECTURE    II. 
The  Influence  of  Jesus  on  the  Social  Life  of  Man  .       71 

LECTURE    III. 

The  Influence  of  Jesus  on  the  Emotional  Life  of 

Man 139 

LECTURE    IV. 

The    Influence    of   Jesus  on    the    Intellectual    Life 
of  Man 207 


THE    INFLUENCE   OF   JKSUS 

ON  THE  MORAL  LIFE  OF  MAN. 


THE    INFLUENCE   OF  JESUS 

ON  THE  MORAL  LIFE  OF  MAN. 


"\T  7HAT  is  the  power  of  Christianity  over 
man, —  its  source,  its  character,  its  issue? 
This  is  the  question  which  I  wish  to  study  with 
you  in  these  four  lectures  which  I  have  been 
invited  to  deliver.  But  it  is  necessary  at  the 
outset  that  I  should  indicate  the  limits  within 
which  I  wish  to  work.  All  that  the  subject,  as 
I  have  stated  it,  would  include,  not  four  nor  forty 
lectures  could  undertake  to  treat. 

I  have  been  led,  then,  to  think  of  Christianity, 
and  to  speak  of  it,  —  at  least  in  these  lectures,  — 
not  as  a  system  of  doctrine,  but  as  a  personal 
force,  behind  which  and  in  which  there  lies  one 
great  inspiring  idea,  which  it  is  the  work  of  the 
personal  force  to  impress  upon  the  life  of  man, 
with  which  the  personal  force  is  always  strug- 
gling to  fill  mankind.  The  personal  force  is  the 
nature  of  Jesus,  full  of  humanity,  full  of  divinity, 


12  The  Influence  of  jFesus 

and  powerful  with  a  love  for  man  which  com- 
bines in  itself  every  element  that  enters  into  love 
of  the  completest  kind.  The  inspiring  idea  is 
the  fatherhood  of  God,  and  the  childhood  of  every 
man  to  Him.  Upon  the  race  and  upon  the 
individual,  Jesus  is  always  bringing  into  more 
and  more  perfect  revelation  the  certain  truth 
that  man,  and  every  man,  is  the  child  of  God. 
This  is  the  sum  of  the  work  of  the  Incarnation. 
A  hundred  other  statements  regarding  it,  regard- 
ing Him  who  was  incarnate,  are  true  ;  but  all 
statements  concerning  Him  hold  their  truth 
within  this  truth,  —  that  Jesus  came  to  restore 
the  fact  of  God's  fatherhood  to  man's  knowledge, 
and  to  its  central  place  of  power  over  man's  life. 
Jesus  is  mysteriously  the  Word  of  God  made 
flesh.  He  is  the  worker  of  amazing  miracles 
upon  the  bodies  and  the  souls  of  men.  He  is 
the  convincer  of  sin.  He  is  the  Savior  by  suffer- 
ing. But  behind  all  these,  as  the  purpose  for 
which  He  is  all  these,  He  is  the  redeemer  of  man 
into  the  fatherhood  of  God.  It  would  be  deeply 
interesting  to  dwell  on  any  one  of  these  special 
aspects  of  His  wondrous  life  ;  but  when  we  want 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  13 

to  gather  into  one  great  comprehensive  statement 
the  purpose  for  which  Jesus  lived,  and  the  power 
which  His  life  has  had  over  the  lives  of  men,  we 
must  seize  His  great  idea  and  find  His  power 

there.     For  every  man's  power  is  his  idea  multi-  N 

< 
plied  by  and  projected  through  his  personality. 

The  special  actions  which  he  does  are  only  the 
points  at  which  his  power  shows  itself, — the 
tips  of  his  powerful  life,  where  its  magnetic  force 
is  manifested,  but  not  where  it  is  created.  And 
so  the  power  of  Jesus  is  the  idea  of  Jesus  multi 
plied  and  projected  through  the  person  of  Jesus. 
His  power  is  not  in  the  miracles  that  He  did,  not 
even  in  the  marvellous  nature  which  He  bore,  but 
in  the  great  truth,  the  primal  and  final  fact  of  all 
the  universe,  so  far  as  man  has  any  part  in  it, 
which  the  whole  nature  of  the  Savior  uttered, 
and  with  whose  splendor  every  miraculous  touch 
of  that  nature  on  the  world,  or  on  man's  body  or 
man's  soul,  burst  forth  into  light. 

I  have  said  already  what  that  idea  is,  —  the 
relation  of  childhood  and  fatherhood  between 
mar.  and  God.  Man  is  the  child  of  God  by  na- 
ture He  is  ignorant  and  rebellious,  —  the  prodi- 


< 


14  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

gal  child  of  God  ;  but  his  ignorance  and  rebellion 
never  break  that  first  relationship.  It  is  always 
a. child  ignorant  of  his  Father;  always  a  child 
rebellious  against  his  Father.  That  is  what 
makes  the  tragedy  of  human  history,  and  always 
prevents  human  sin  from  becoming  an  insignifi- 
cant and  squalid  thing.  To  reassert  the  father- 
hood and  childhood  as  an  unlost  truth,  and  to 
re-establish  its  power  as  the  central  fact  of  life  ; 
to  tell  men  that  they  were,  and  to  make  them 
actually  be,  the  sons  of  God,  —  that  was  the  pur- 
pose of  the  coming  of  Jesus,  and  the  shaping 
power  of  His  life. 

Of  course  it  is  not  possible  to  speak  of  such  an 
idea — which  is  indeed  the  idea  of  the  universe — 
as  if  it  were  a  message  intrusted  to  the  Son  of 
God  when  He  came  to  be  the  Savior  of  man- 
kind. It  was  not  only  something  which  He  knew 
and  taught ;  it  was  something  which  He  was. 
No  other  truth  ever  so  inspires  a  merely  human 
teacher,  so  fills  his  whole  life  with  itself,  so 
comes  to  be  not  merely  the  creed  which  his  lips 
declare  but  the  life  which  his  whole  living  utters, 
as  this  truth  of  man's  childhood  to  God.  And  in 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man. 


Him  who  was  at  once  the  manifested  God  and  the 
completion  of  humanity,  the  idea  and  the  person 
are  so  mingled  that  we  cannot  separate  them. 
He  is  the  truth,  and  whoever  receives  Him  be-  * 
comes  the  son  of  God. 

As  I  read  the  Gospels  and  see  what  Jesus  is 
trying  to  do  with  men,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  this 
truth  that  man  is  the  child  of  God  were  to  him, 
in  a  certain  genuine  sense,  a  final  truth,  —  a 
truth  beyond  which  the  soul  cannot  or  at  least 
need  not  go,  —  a  truth  which,  if  it  could  be  really 
laid  upon  the  soul,  would  bring  its  own  evidence 
and  its  own  interpretation.  It  is  indeed  capable 
of  being  analyzed.  It  may  be  resolved  into  the 
several  elements  which  make  up  its  meaning. 
It  includes  the  notions  of  a  common  nature  be- 
tween the  Father  and  the  son,  of  a  spontaneous 
affection  of  the  Father,  of  an  essential  obligation  " 
of  the  son,  and  of  a  possibility  of  the  son's  un-  * 
s  limited  growth  into  the  Father's  likeness.  All  ' 
these  are  present,  are  assumed  in  every  declara- 
tion of  man's  sonship  to  God  which  Jesus  ever 
makes.  But  He  does  not  unfold  them  and  define 
them.  It  seems  to  Him  as  if,  when  He  says  to 


V.  & 


16  The  Influence  of  Jestis 

any  human  creature,  "  You  are  God's  child,"  all 
these  included  truths  revealed  themselves  to  the 
soul  in  such  degree  as  his  spiritual  nature  was 
then  able  to  receive  them.  It  seems  to  Him  as  if 
when  He  says  to  a  sinner,  forgetful  of  his  sonship, 
"  Rise  up  and  be  God's  child,"  all  these  included 
truths  came  in  with  their  own  power  to  restore 
his  life.  He  always  treats  the  truth  of  Father- 
hood as  the  best  children  of  the  best  earthly 
fathers  treat  it,  not  ignorant  of  the  elemental 
truths  of  which  it  is  composed,  but  best  satisfied 
to  let  it  rest  in  its  own  unity,  as  if  any  analysis 
must  disturb  its  beauty  and  its  power. 

It  is  more  important  than  we  often  think,  that 
we  should  grasp  the  general  idea,  the  general 
purpose,  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  The  Gospels  be- 
come to  us  a  new  book  when  we  no  longer  read 
them  merely  as  the  anecdotes  of  the  life  of  one 
who,  with  a  great,  kind  heart,  went  through  the 
world  promiscuously  doing  good  as  opportunities 
occurred  to  Him.  The  drifting  and  haphazard 
currents  gather  themselves  together,  and  we  are 
borne  on  with  the  full  and  enthusiastic  impulse 
Df  a  great  river  which  knows  itself  and  knows 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  17 

the  sea  it  seeks.  And  when  the  ruling  idea  is 
this  which  fills  the  life  of  Jesus,  it  is  doubly  true 
that  only  by  clearly  seizing  it  can  we  get  at  the 
heart  and  meaning  of  His  life.  For  it  is  not  only 
an  idea ;  it  is  a  religious  inspiration.  It  is  not 
only  the  food  of  the  mind  ;  it  is  the  fire  of  the 
soul.  In  all  its  human  uses,  the  idea  of  father- 
hood comes  nearer  to  being  a  religious  idea  than 
that  of  any  other  human  relationship.  And 
when  we  catch  sight  of  it  as  the  expression  of 
man's  relationship  to  God,  it  has  all  that  mys- 
terious and  beautiful  mingling  of  the  most  vast 
and  awful  with  the  most  near  and  personal  and 
urgent,  all  that  vagueness  which  we  know 
includes  definiteness,  all  that  definiteness  not 
excluding  vagueness,  which  is  the  very  essence 
of  religious  impressiveness.  And  when  we  think 
of  it  as  the  idea  of  Jesus,  it  must  always  have 
this  special  beauty  connected  with  it,  that  Jesus 
must  have  grown  up  into  the  apprehension  of  it 
as  He  grew  into  the  consciousness  of  His  own  life. 

He  must  have  become  aware  that  all  men  were 

x  * 
God's  sons,  and  felt  the  desire  to  tell  them  so 

and  make  their  sonship  a  reality,  kindling  like 


1 8  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

fire  within  Him,  just  in  proportion  as  He  came  to 
know,  softly  and  gradually,  under  the  skies  of 
Galilee  and  the  roof  of  the  carpenter,  the  deep 
and  absorbing  mystery  that  He  himself  was  the 
Son  of  God. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  prove  here  that  this 
which  I  have  given  is  a  true  statement  of  the 
idea  of  Jesus.  As  He  stands  there  in  the  broad 
sunlight  of  the  Gospels,  as  His  clear  words  come 
down  to  us  through  the  atmosphere  of  centuries 
which  His  spirit  has  purified,  I  do  not  see  how 
any  one  can  have  a  doubt  of  what  He  means  by 
standing  there,  what  the  purpose  of  His  life  is 
as  He  himself  conceives  it.  If  any  man  had  a 
doubt,  I  should  only  want  to  open  the  Gospels 
•_-  with  him  at  four  most  solemn  places.  Here  is 

*• 

the  consummate  teaching  of  Jesus.  In  His  favor- 
ite form  of  parable,  with  the  widest  gaze  across 
the  vast  field  of  man,  with  the  most  profound 
and  sad  and  hopeful  sympathy  with  human  life, 
He  tells  His  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  It  is  the 
everlasting  picture  of  the  double  possibilities  of 
man, — obedience  and  disobedience.  The  old 
parable  of  Eden,  the  present  mystery  of  your  Hfe 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  19 

and  mine,  the  far-off  Judgment  Day,  and  the 
great  White  Throne,  are  all  gathered  in  together 
and  are  lying  in  the  crystal  depths  of  that  story. 
And  lo !  these  two  possibilities  live  in  the  house 
\}f  one  great  Fatherhood.  "  A  certain  man  had 
two  sons,"  and  from  the  embrace  of  that  father's 
love  neither  of  the  two  sons  ever  departs.  Or,  if 
this  seems  too  metaphorical  to  be  the  revelation 
of  Christ's  idea  of  man,  turn  to  another  scene, 

f    J        * 

and  hear  Him  teaching  all  men  to  pray,  "  Our 
Father  who  art  in  heaven."  Not  only  the  needy 
child,  who  is  going  in  a  moment  to  beg  for  his 
daily  bread,  but  the  sinful  child,  whose  lip  is 
already  trembling  with  the  prayer  to  be  forgiven, 
begins  his  petition  with  the  claim  of  the  son 
upon  the  father.  In  that  idea  alone  the  possi- 
bility and  privilege  of  prayer  grow  clear.  Or, 
still  more  solemn  in  its  special  circumstances, 
there  is  the  scene  beside  the  tomb  from  which 
He  has  just  risen,  when  He  draws  back  the  cur- 
tain, and  with  one  word  proclaims  His  life  and 
His  disciples'  life  together.  "  I  ascend  unto  my 
Father  and  to  your  Father,"  He  declares.  And 
when  He  has  ascended,  and  years  have  passed 


2O  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

away,  and  all  that  He  did  and  was  have  grown 
familial  to  the  disciple  who  loved  Him  most  and 
knew  Him  best ;  when  that  disciple  sums  up  all 
his  conception  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  what  he  says 
is  only  this  :  "  To  as  many  as  received  Him,  to 
them  gave  He  power  to  become  the  sons  of  God." 
Surely,  we  cannot  be  wrong  if  we  say  positively 
that  to  Christ  himself  the  truth  that  man  was 
God's  child  by  nature  was  the  great  fact  of  man's 
existence  ;  and  the  desire  that  man  might  be 
God's  child  in  reality  was  the  motive  of  His  own 
life  and  work. 

I  have  dwelt  long  upon  this  opening  explana- 
tion. But  I  must  leave  it  now.  My  design,  in 
these  lectures,  is  to  try  to  show  how  this  idea  of 
Jesus,  inspiring  and  presented  through  his  per- 
sonality, becomes  the  shaping  power  of  men's 
lives  I  want  to  trace  its  presence  in  all  of  the 
higher  regions  of  man's  life.  I  want  to  see  how 
it  influences  man's  doing  of  duty,  and  his  rela- 
tion to  his  fellow-men,  and  his  acceptance  of 
pain  or  pleasure,  and  his  treatment  of  his  own 
intellectual  powers  These  are  my  four  lectures. 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  21 

Man  in  his  various  life,  touched  and  influenced 
and  shaped  and  led  by  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 
revealed  and  renewed  to  him  by  Jesus.  To-day 
I  shall  speak  of  man's  moral  life.  The  second 
lecture  will  be  of  the  child  of  God  in  all  his  social 
existence.  The  next  lecture  will  treat  of  his  re- 
lation to  enjoyment  and  suffering,  which  are  the 
right  hand  and  the  left  hand  of  the  same  Father. 
And  in  the  last  lecture  I  shall  speak  of  that  life 
of  the  intellect  in  which  man  is  most  ready  to 
forget  his  Father,  or  to  think  that  his  Father  has 
nothing  that  he  can  do  for  him.  They  will  be 
Biblical  studies  ;  for  I  shall  look  solely  to  what 
Jesus,  the  revealer  of  the  Father,  did  for  men  in 
the  few  years  of  which  the  Gospels  tell,  in  order 
to  find  the  types  of  what  it  is  His  perpetual  effort 
and  wish  to  do.  I  dare  to  hope,  as  the  result  of 
all  our  studies,  that  we  may  be  helped  somewhat 
in  that  which  I  think  we  all  find  the  hardest  and 
'  most  hopeless  work  of  all  our  lives,  —  the  effort 
to  keep  our  highest  ideas  and  our  commonest 
occupations  in  constant  and  healthy  contact  with 
each  other. 

Forgive  me  one  word  more.     It  gives  me  also 


22  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

pleasure  to  believe  that  the  subject  which  I  have 
chosen  is  one  which  would  not  have  been  un- 
welcome to  my  dear  friend  of  years  ago,  whose 
honored  name  this  lectureship  bears,  and  in 
whose  behalf  I  shall  in  some  sort  speak.  For,  of 
the  men  whom  I  have  known,  there  has  been 
none  whose  daily  moral  life,  whose  association 
with  his  fellow-men,  whose  meeting  of  the  joy 
and  pain  of  living,  and  whose  ways  of  thought 
and  study,  have  been  more  in  the  power  of  the 
idea  of  Jesus,  more  inspired  by  his  Lord's  revela- 
tion that  he  was,  more  obedient  and  trustful  to 
his  Lord's  authority  in  order  that  he  might 
become,  the  son  of  God. 

f  The  manifestation  of  God's  fatherhood  which 
was  made  in  Jesus  is  the  shaping  power  of 

I  Christian  morals,  —  that  which  makes  the  moral- 
ity of  Christian  life  distinct  and  different  from 
any  other  that  the  world  has  seen.  In  what  does 
that  difference  consist?  In  two  things,  as  it 
seems  to  me  :  First,  in  the  complete  combination 

^ - <  •  «..        w 

of  pattern  and  power  in  the  source  from  which 
the  morality  proceeds ;  and,  second,  in  the  com 


. 

Avv^ 1 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  23 

b'nation  of  reason  and  authority  in  the  basis 
upon  which  the  morality  is  constantly  recognized 
as  resting.  These  are  the  two  great  character- 
istics of  family  morality,  of  that  rectitude  and 
goodness  which  grow  up  in  the  child  as  he  lives 
in  his  father's  house,  sheltered  by  and  fed  out  of 
his  father's  character.  Think  of  them  both  for 
a  moment.  Where,  except  in  that  primal  type 
of  human  influence  and  benefaction,  the  human 
family,  do  the  pattern  of  goodness  and  the  power 
of  goodness  meet  in  such  perfect  unity  ?  Else- 
where there  may  stand  up  models  of  excellence, 
but  they  are  distant  and  cold.  They  do  not 
carry  in  themselves  their  own  enforcement. 
They  are  not  clothed  with  the  impressiveness  of 
a  deep  natural  affection.  Elsewhere  than  in  the 
home  there  may  be  very  winning  persuasions  to 
goodness ;  but  nowhere  so  perfectly  as  in  the 
home  does  the  persuasive  appeal  come  from  the 
mouth  of  the  very  goodness  which  is  the  natural 
pattern  of  the  life  which  it  tries  to  win.  The 
good  father  at  once  shows  goodness  as  no  other 
being  can  show  it  to  the  child,  and  likewise  in- 
vites him  to  it  with  an  influence  that  no  other 


24  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

being  can  possess.  And,  besides  this,  the  child, 
when  he  has  come  to  goodness  like  his  father's 
by  obedience  to  his  father,  finds  himself  unable 
to  tell  whether  the  good  life  which  he  tries  to 
live  is  something  which  holds  him  by  its  own 
inherent  fascination,  or  something  to  which  he 
submits  in  willing  acceptance  of  his  father's  will. 
The  essential  and  the  arbitrary  blend,  and  are 
lost  in  one  another.  The  child's  nature  bears 
witness  to  its  oneness  with  the  father's  nature  by 
the  way  in  which  it  makes  its  own  choices  those 
duties  which  come  to  it  in  the  first  place  as  the 
father's  mandates. 

Now  these  two  qualities,  shadowed  forth  in 
every  true  home,  come  to  their  completeness  in 
the  home  of  God,  the  home  of  man  in  God,  which 
is  Christianity.  It  will  be  interesting,  I  hope, 
to  follow  this  truth  out  in  some  detail ;  but  first 
we  can  see,  perhaps,  how  true  it  is,  if  we  turn 
suddenly  to  our  Gospels  and  open  them  at  once 
at  what  is,  after  all,  the  great  text-book  of  Chris- 
tian morals,  the  code  of  Christian  life,  the  cor- 
respondent and  fulfilment  in  the  New  Testament 
of  the  Ten  Commandments  in  the  Old.  I  mean 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  25 

the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  To  that  discourse 
let  us  give  a  few  moments'  study.  In  the  late 
summer,  Jesus  is  coming  home  from  one  of  his 
teaching-tours  in  Galilee,  and  in  the  evening  he 
and  the  company  that  follow  him  approach  Ca- 
pernaum. They  will  not  enter  the  city  till  to- 
morrow morning.  To-night  the  people  sleep 
around  the  foot  of  a  great  hill  that  rises  near  the 
town.  But  Jesus,  that  he  may  be  more  alone, 
climbs  higher,  and  spends  the  night  in  prayer 
and  meditation.  Out  of  this  solitude,  out  of 
this  mysterious  communion  with  His  Father,  in 
which  He  has,  as  it  were,  refilled  Himself  with 
the  assurance  that  the  human  is  son  to  the  Di- 
vine, He  comes  when  morning  breaks,  and,  gath- 
ering His  disciples  around  Him,  He  speaks  to 
them,  and  the  multitude  who  have  thronged 
about  Him,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which  is 
written  in  three  chapters  of  St.  Matthew's  Gos- 
pel. I  do  not  see  how  any  one  who  reads  it  care- 
fully can  fail  to  feel  that  in  that  sermon  we  have 
what  is  essentially  a  unit,  —  one  single,  separate 
discourse  of  Jesus.  It  has  no  rhetorical  order 
or  progress.  It  does  not  move  in  any  argumenta- 


26  T/te  Influence  of  Jesus 

live  development.  We  have  but  to  feel  ourselves 
back  into  the  bright  air  and  sunshine  of  that  fresh 
morning  far  away  in  Galilee,  with  the  sweet  dis- 
traction of  the  early  birds  filling  the  air,  and 
the  soft,  dreamy  faces  of  the  Galilean  peasants 
making  the  listening  group,  in  order  to  become 
aware  how  perfectly  impossible  it  was  that  the 
discourse  should  move  to  any  such  measure  as 
might  have  become  the  lecture-room  of  a  new 
Rabbi.  It  has  its  unity  in  its  controlling  pur- 
pose. It  is  one  by  the  life-blood  of  the  one  idea 
which  beats  through  it,  and  which  those  ready 
and  responsive  peasant  natures  feel.  And  what 
is  that  idea  ?  Neander  calls  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  "  the  Magna  Charta  of  the  kingdom  of 
God."  It  is  a  fine  phrase,  and  in  one  sense  it 
is  completely  true.  But  really  the  idea  of  God 
which  fills  the  great  discourse  is  not  the  idea  of 
king,  but  the  idea  of  father.  No  doubt  the 
two,  in  their  original  use  and  in  the  loftiest  use 
of  them,  when,  as  in  the  loftiest  use  of  all  words, 
they  refresh  the  lost  memory  of  their  origin,  are 
really  one.  The  king  was  originally  father.  The 
Basileia  was  a  family.  It  belonged  to  the  king, 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  27 

as  the  family  belongs  to  the  father,  by  right  of 
blood.  It  was  not  like  the  Turannis,  which  im- 
plied a  usurpation,  an  unnatural  and  cruel  thing. 
Kingship  included  the  three  essential  ideas  of 
fatherhood,  which,  as  I  reminded  you,  are  one« 
ness  of  nature,  natural  impulse  of  obedience,  and 
the  obligation  of  loving  care.  The  noblest  hea- 
then always  felt  all  this  ;  and  Zeus  is  either 
king  of  gods  and  men,  or  father  of  gods  and 
men,  —  as  if  the  two  names  meant  the  selfsame 
thing.  But  yet  the  two  words  always  tended  to 
drift  apart.  Lordship  and  command  belonged  to 
kingship  ;  love  and  care  belonged  to  fatherhood. 
What  we  really  have,  then,  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  what  gives  it  its  great,  everlasting  value, 
is  the  passing  over  of  kingship  into  fatherhood  ; 
or,  if  you  please  to  put  it  so,  the  opening  and 
deepening  of  kingship  till  it  reveals  the  father- 
hood which  lies  folded  at  the  heart  of  it.  This, 
I  am  sure,  is  the  key  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  which  alone  can  unlock  its  meaning. 
Men  have  often  pointed  out  how  largely  its  sepa- 
rate precepts  can  be  matched  out  of  other  codes  ; 
as  if  the  substance  and  power  of  a  moral  law  lay 


28  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

in  its  commandments,  and  did  not  really  rest  in 
the  conception  of  the  commander  which  breathed 
through  it  and  gave  it  life. 

Here,  then,  is  what  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
really  means.  And,  in  conformity  with  this,  all 
through  it  there  are  strung  those  two  great  com- 
binations which  I  spoke  of,  —  the  combination 
of  pattern  and  power,  the  combination  of  reason 
and  authority.  The  pattern  is  a  personal  nature, 
ultimate  and  absolute,  behind  which  it  is  im- 
possible to  go.  The  good  is  good  because  it  is 
like  Him.  The  bad  is  bad  because  it  is  unlike 
Him.  There  is  no  other  standard  in  the  whole 
discourse  than  that.  It  is  assumed  that  a  man 
may  know  God  and  then  that  he  wants  nothing 
more,  that  in  God  he  has  the  perfect  test  and 
touchstone  of  all  life.  "  Be  ye  therefore  per- 
fect," Jesus  says,  "even  as  your  Father  which 
is  in  heaven  is  perfect."  "  Love  your  enemies, 
bless  them  that  curse  you"  ;  and  why?  "That 
ye  may  be  the  children  of  your  Father  which  is  in 
heaven."  "  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and 
His  righteousness,  and  all  these  things  shall  be 
added  unto  you."  What  do  these  words  mean, 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  29 

that  close  like  a  great  choral  amen  the  sweet 
and  rhythmical  injunctions  to  a  divine  careless- 
ness ?  "  Take  no  thought  for  your  life."  "  Lay 
not  up  treasures  on  the  earth."  "  Take  no  thought, 
saying,  What  shall  we  eat,  or  what  shall  we 
drink."  Let  all  things  go.  Only,  —  and  then 
the  words  seem  to  concentrate  out  of  their  easy 
carelessness  into  a  deep  intensity  that  is  all  thf 
more  intense  by  contrast,  —  only,  "  seek  God's 
righteousness,  seek  to  be  righteous  like  Him, 
with  that  divine  capacity  of  likeness  which  is  in 
you,  as  His  children,  and  then  everything  else 
shall  follow  as  it  may."  These  are  no  solitary 
texts.  They  are  only  special  words  in  which 
the  whole  current  of  the  sermon  flashes  up  into 
peculiar  distinctness,  as  a  wave  flashes  on  the 
bosom  of  a  stream  and  shows  which  way  the 
stream  is  running. 

And  as  the  Father  is  the  standard  of  the 
moral  life  that  is  enforced,  so  it  is  from  Him  and 
from  His  fatherhood  that  the  whole  power 
comes  by  which  that  standard  is  to  be  pursued 
and  finally  attained.  There  is  nothing  abstract 
and  cold.  Everything  shines  and  burns  with 


30  The  Influence  of  Jesus 


personal  affection.  I  am  to  be  good  like  my 
Father  ;  I  am  to  be  good  because  of  my  Father  ; 
like  His  character,  because  of  His  love.  "  If  ye 
forgive  men  their  trespasses,  then  your  Heavenly 
Father  will  forgive  you."  "  Swear  not  by  heaven, 
for  it  is  God's  throne,  nor  by  earth,  for  it  is 
His  footstool."  "  Let  your  light  shine  before 
men,  that  they  may  glorify  your  Father  which  is 
in  heaven."  "  Blessed  are  the  peace-makers,  for 
they  shall  be  called  the  children  of  God."  These, 
again,  are  not  exceptional  or  accidental  words. 
They  are  the  flashes  on  the  stream  which  flows 
the  other  way  to  meet  the  stream  from  God  to 
man  which  we  were  just  now  tracing.  Already 
it  is  true,  as  by  and  by  an  Apostle  will  declare, 
that  "  of  Him,  and  through  Him,  and  to  Him, 
are  all  things."  The  pattern  descends  from  the 
Father  to  the  Son.  The  responsive  likeness 
goes  back  from  the  Son  to  the  Father ;  and  both 
because  they  are  Father  and  Son  to  one  another. 
It  is  all  full  of  the  spirit  of  spontaneousness.  It 
is  "  the  Magna  Charta  of  the  kingdom  of  God," 
indeed.  But  the  picture  fails  if  we  think  of  the 
reluctant  king  upon  the  plain  at  Runnymede  with 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  3 1 

his  stern  barons  compelling  him  to  give  what  he 
gave  only  with  hatred  and  rage.  Rather  it  seems 
to  be  the  prophecy  and  anticipation  of  that 
heavenly  plain  where  the  celestial  King  in  the 
mystic  picture  of  the  Revelation  gives  Himself 
ungrudgingly  to  His  beloved,  whose  natures, 
perfectly  redeemed  by  Him  and  conformed  to 
His,  can  take  Him  perfectly  ;  where  "the  Lamb 
which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  shall  feed 
them,  and  shall  lead  them  unto  living  fountains  of 
waters,"  —  the  anticipation  of  that  and  the  memory 
and  completion  of  the  garden  at  the  other  end  of 
human  history,  where  the  Father  walked  with  his 
children  in  their  first  innocence. 

Along  with  this  combination  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  always  keeps  the  other,  —  the  combination 
of  reason  and  authority,  or  of  essentialness  and 
arbitrariness,  which  is  characteristic  of  the  child's 
obedience  to  the  father.  I  must  not  dwell  on 
this,  but  I  am  sure  that"  all  of  us  have  felt,  as  we 
have  read  those  sacred  chapters  of  St.  Matthew, 
how  exquisitely  these  two  lights  play  through 
them  and  harmonize  with  one  another,  —  the 
light  that  comes  to  any  duty  from  the  command 


of  God  that  we  should  do  it,  and  the  light  which 
the  same  duty  wins  because  we  ourselves  per- 
ceive that  it  is  the  right  thing  to  do.  The 
essence  of  every  beatitude  is  in  the  human 
heart,  and  yet  the  human  heart  loves  to  hear  the 
utterance  of  the  beatitudes  from  the  mouth  of 
God  as  if  they  were  His  arbitrary  enactments. 
I  know  by  that  of  the  nature  of  God  which  is  in 
me  as  His  child,  that  they  which  hunger  and  thirst 
after  righteousness  shall  certainly  be  filled.  I 
am  sure  by  that  subtle  knowledge  of  Him  which 
the  child  must  have  of  the  Father,  that  He  could 
not  leave  a  really  longing  soul  unsatisfied  in  all 
His  world.  That  importunate  happiness,  eager 
to  give  itself  away,  must  pour  itself  into  every 
ready  life.  But  yet  I  accept  the  utterance  which 
Jesus  makes  of  that  which  I  already  knew,  as  a 
genuine  revelation.  The  instinct  of  my  wak- 
ened childhood  rests  upon  the  strong  confirma- 
tion of  the  Father's  uttered  word.  This  runs 
through  all  the  great  discourse.  I  leave  it  with 
you  to  trace  it  there.  Only  I  want  you  to  notice 
that  this  interplay  of  essentialness  and  arbitrari- 
ness is  exactly  what  characterizes  every  true  home 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  33 

life,  where  the  children  learn  truth  and  receive 
commandments  from  their  father.      The  child's 
partial  and  growing  perception  that  it  must  be 
so,  chimes  and  harmonizes  with  the  father's  dis 
tinct  injunction  that  it  shall  be  so. 

I  am  sure  that  when  the  listening  repose  of 
the  multitude  was  broken  as  the  sermon  closed, 
and,  like  a  melted  stream,  the  crowd  flowed  away 
into  the  city,  the  people  carried  something  more 
with  them  than  a  few  handfuls  of  good  precepts. 
I  think  that  they  went  silently,  or  with  few  words, 
with  something  of  exaltation  and  wonder  at 
themselves  in  their  faces.  They  had  been  taught 
that  they  were  God's  children.  One  who  was 
evidently  God's  Son  Himself  had  told  them  so. 
He  had  bidden  them,  as  God's  children,  at  once 
to  see  duty  with  something  of  His  own  immedi- 
ateness  of  perception,  and  also  to  hear  Him 
announcing  it  to  them  out  of  a  Father's  lips. 
Duty,  the  thing  they  ought  to  do,  had  shone 
for  them  that  morning  at  once  with  its  own 
essential  sweetness  and  with  the  illumination 
of  their  Father's  will.  No  wonder  that  as  they 
walked  together  they  said  to  one  another,  "  He 
3 


34  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

speaks  to  us  with  authority.     It  is  not  like  the 
Scribes." 

I  must  not  1'nger  on  this  hurried  study  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  I  have  dwelt  thus  long 
upon  it  because,  as  it  is  the  longest  and  most 
deliberate  statement  of  moral  duty  in  the  Gospels, 
I  wanted  to  show  how  it  was  all  pervaded  by  and 
built  about  the  idea  of  Jesus.  Let  us  go  on  now 
to  see  how  that  idea  pervades  likewise  all  His 
treatment  of  the  men  and  women  whom  His  life 
touched.  It  is  the  idea  of  a  divine  fatherhood, 
of  a  natural  belonging  of  every  man's  soul  in 
goodness,  of  wickedness  as  an  exile,  an  unnatural, 
unfilial  state  of  life,  and  of  the  return  to  goodness 
as  the  coming  back  to  a  homeland  which  the 
soul  recognizes  as  it  enters  into  it  and  claims  a? 
its  true  place.  I  think  that  this  idea  of  moral? 
at  once  outgoes  and  comprehends  the  various 
theories  of  moral  life  which  men  have  framed  and 
set  in  opposition  to  each  other.  If  in  the  family 
the  child's  instinct  of  childhood  unites  in  itself 
the  perception  of  his  own  best  good  with  the 
consciousness  of  obligation  to  his  Father's  will, 
then  in  the  world,  turned  by  Christ  a  revelation 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  35 

to  one  mighty  family,  the  utilitarian  and  the 
intuitional  theories  of  duty  may  blend  in  har- 
mony, and  the  soul  serving  God  as  its  Father 
may  live  under  the  combined  power  of  the  two. 

But,  not  to  dwell  on  this,  the  idea  of  Jesus 
applied  to  men's  moral  life  must  include  two 
things,  —  a  revelation  of  the  moral  standard,  and 
a  revelation  of  the  moral  motive.  Let  us  take, 
these  in  their  order. 

And  first,  the  moral  standard.  What  is  it? 
What  am  I  to  be  conformed  to  as  the  work  of 
moral  improvement  goes  on  in  me  ?  There  may 
be  various  answers.  One  man  may  say,  "To 
this  law,"  holding  up  a  scroll  of  precepts. 
"That  is  to  be  your  goal.  When  you  obey 
those,  the  work  is  done."  Another  man  says, 
"To  this  person,"  pointing  to  some  one,  human 
or  divine,  whose  life  is  moving  along  outside  of 
mine,  —  a  pattern,  a  model,  which  I  am  to  emulate 
as  a  dandle  measures  its  twinkling  light  against 
a  star.  Now  the  answer  of  Jesus  is  different 
from  both  of  these,  I  think.  "You  are  to  be 
like  your  Father,"  He  declares  ;  "  but  ;.t  is  in  the 
fact  that  He  is  your  Father  and  that  you  are  His 


36  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

child  that  the  possibility  of  likeness  lies,  and 
that  the  kind  of  possible  likeness  is  decreed. 
You  are  to  be  like  Him,  as  the  child  is  like  the 
father,  by  the  attainment  of  that  echo  of  the 
father's  nature  which  is  the  child's  essential  heri- 
tage. You  are  to  be  like  Him  by  coming  to  that 
expression  of  Him  which  is  the  true  idea  of  your 
child-life.  You  are  to  fulfil  the  unfulfilled  pro- 
gramme of  your  own  life,  which  is  involved  in 
the  fact  that  you  are  the  child  of  God.  You  are 
to  become  '  like  your  Father,'  fulfilling  the  in- 
junction of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  by  '  com- 
ing to  yourself/  so  realizing  the  picture  of  the 
parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son." 

Is  there  here  an  intelligible  and  practicable 
moral  standard  ?  Man  is  to  return  into  the  idea  of 
his  own  life  as  the  son  of  God.  He  is  to  be  equal 
to  his  own  conception,  as  that  conception  is  written 
in  the  nature  of  the  Holy  Being  from  whom  he 
came  and  to  whom  he  belongs.  At  least,  that  is 
a  standard  whose  perpetual  presence  shaped  out 
Lord's  treatment  of  the  men  and  women  whom 
He  was  trying  to  restore.  Note  this  in  several 
particulars.  First,  look  at  the  combination  of 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  37 

sternness  and  kindliness,  of  mercy  and  severity, 
which  appears  wherever  Jesus  touches  a  sinner's 
life.  One  day  they  brought  to  Him  a  woman 
taken  in  the  act  of  sin.  Their  stern,  hard  faces 
—  the  faces  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  — 
glared  at  their  victim,  and  then  turned  away  from 
her  to  Him  from  whom  they  claimed  her  condem- 
nation. "  Moses  in  the  Law  commanded  us  that 
such  should  be  stoned,"  they  said.  It  was  purely 
the  reference  to  a  law,  to  the  appraisal  of  a  sin 
by  its  assigned,  appointed  penalty.  There  is  no 
thought  of  her,  no  consideration  of  what  she  is. 
or  of  what  she  possibly  may  be.  It  is  only  the 
sin,  the  law,  and  Moses,  the  appraiser  of  sins  and 
laws  by  the  standards  of  an  absolute  justice  that 
is  as  impersonal  and  as  free  from,  obtrusive  sym- 
pathies as  the  stars  or  winds.  Then  Jesus  turns 
and  looks  around  upon  them  all.  He  lets  a 
silence  fall  through  the  great  temple  while  He 
stoops  and  seems  to  write  upon  the  ground.  It 
is  as  if  He  wanted  a  gap,  a  blank  of  stillness, 
to  come  between  their  view  about  it  all  and  His. 
Then  He  speaks  :  "  He  that  is  without  sin  among 
you,  let  him  first  cast  a  stone  at  her."  Do  you  not 


38  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

see  the  difference  ?  Everything  is  personal.  It 
is  not  "  such  as  she,"  it  is  she.  They  are  not  mere 
mechanical  executors  of  a  written  law  ;  they  are 
men  who  cannot  escape  personal  judgments  them- 
selves. They  have  something  to  do  with  her 
besides  to  stone  her.  They  are  partners  in  sin. 
They  are  beings  with  the  same  obligations,  the 
same  temptations,  the  same  history  of  failure.  The 
whole  pulsates  with  personality.  And  when,  after 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  have  crept  away,  He 
turns  to  the  woman  and  says,  "  I  do  not  condemn 
thee:  go,  and  sin  no  more," — along  with  a  deep  and 
terrible  sense  of  how  dreadfully  she  had  sinned, 
along  with  the  most  complete  self-condemnation, 
there  must  have  come  into  the  poor  creature's 
heart  a  vision  of  the  power  of  not  sinning  which 
was  in  her,  in  which  she  thenceforth  could  be- 
lieve because  He  believed  in  it,  and  in  the  con- 
scious possession  of  which  she  knew  herself  to 
be,  in  the  first  unlost  but  long  unseen  idea  and 
deepest  truth  of  her  existence,  the  child  of  God. 
Or  think  about  the  other  woman,  who  came 
creeping  in,  with  her  box  of  ointment,  to  anoint 
the  feet  of  Jesus  as  He  sat  supping  with  the 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  39 

Pharisee.  The  same  contrast  of  treatment  shines 
out  there.  The  shocked  and  scandalized  Phari- 
see cries  out,  "  This  man  ought  to  have  known 
who  and  what  manner  of  woman  this  is  ! "  It  is 
"  what  manner  of  woman."  She  is  one  of  a  class. 
She  is  a  kind  of  being,  not  a  being,  not  one 
live,  loving,  despairing  woman.  But  Jesus  begins 
to  speak,  and  instantly  there  she  is  !  No  longer 
this  "  manner  of  woman,"  but  "  this  woman." 
And  then  her  story  comes,  —  the  story  of  her 
love  for  her  rescuer,  and  of  her  humble  and  ab- 
sorbing and  self-forgetful  desire  to  do  something 
for  Him  ;  the  story  of  her  tears  and  kisses  on 
His  feet,  and  the  spilt  ointment  whose  fragrance 
yet  filled  the  room.  And  it  is  told  so  that  the 
most  supercilious  guests  turn  with  a  wondering 
recognition  of  a  true  human  life  among  them  ; 
told  so  that  the  poor  woman  herself,  while  she 
cowered  with  shame  and  glowed  with  love,  must 
have  thrilled  through  and  through  with  self- 
recognition,  with  a  knowledge  of  herself  wholly 
new  but  perfectly  certain  and  clear ;  told  so  that 
no  figure  of  woman's  nature  anywhere  in  history 
stands  more  clearly  before  the  eyes  of  men  to- 


4O  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

day.  And  it  is  her  possibility,  undestroyed  by 
all  her  sin  ;  it  is  her  power  of  loving  the  mani- 
festation of  God,  —  the  power  by  which  she  may 
rise  out  of  her  sin  and  be  what  she  was  made  to 
be,  —  it  is  this  that  He  touches  by  His  words 
and  calls  forth  into  life,  and  by  its  new  life  saves 
her  soul,  which  seemed  to  be  lost  and  dead. 

In  both  these  stories  see  the  severity  and  see 
the  gentleness !  There  is  no  making  light  of 
sin ;  there  is  no  cruelty  to  the  sinner.  These 
two  hands,  one  strong  with  stern  holiness,  the 
other  gentle  with  sympathy,  untwist  the  cords 
that  bind  the  soul,  and  set  it  free  to  be  itself. 
The  rebuked  sin  becomes  itself  the  impulse  that 
sends  the  soul  away  from  its  sin  into  the  revealed 
possibility  of  goodness.  And  these  two  hands 
they  are  which  always  Christ  has  used  to  rescue 
men's  souls.  The  perfect  severity  of  holiness 
and  the  perfect  tenderness  of  love,  which  blend 
nowhere  but  in  the  thought  of  the  ideal  family, 
blend  perfectly  in  the  moral  method  of  the  Son 
of  God  seeking  His  brethren. 

Again,  I  think  that  this  same  idea  appears  in 
the  way  in  which  Jesus  uses  self-sacrifice,  —  that 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  41 

instrument  which  all  the  moral  disciplines  that 
the  world  has  seen  have  always  used,  but  of 
which  He  always  seems  to  make  a  higher  and 
peculiar  use.  One  kind  of  moral  training  uses 
self-sacrifice  as  punishment.  Because  you  have 
done  so  much  which  you  ought  not  to  have  done, 
therefore  you  shall  surrender  so  much  which  it 
would  give  you  pleasure  to  possess.  Another 
uses  self-sacrifice  as  an  expression  of  the  essen- 
tial badness  of  the  thing  surrendered.  Because 
the  earth  is  inherently,  intrinsically  wicked, 
therefore  come  away  from  it  and  be  separate. 
Because  the  body  is  accursed,  therefore  pluck 
out  thy  right  eye,  cut  off  thy  right  hand.  But 
to  Jesus  self-sacrifice  always  is  a  means  of  free- 
dom. That  is  what  always  gives  to  the  self- 
denials  which  He  demands  a  triumphant  and 
enthusiastic  air.  Not  because  you  have  not 
deserved  to  enjoy  it,  not  because  it  is  wicked  to 
enjoy  it,  but  because  there  is  another  enjoyment 
more  worthy  of  your  nature,  for  which  the  native 
appetite  shall  show  itself  in  you  the  moment  that 
you  really  lay  hold  of  it,  therefore  let  this  first 
inferior  enjoyment  go  ;  and  by  this  conception 


42  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

of  the  purpose  of  self-sacrifice,  Christ's  law  and 
limit  of  self-sacrifice  is  always  settled.  One  day 
a  young  man  came  to  Jesus.  He  had  seen  some 
glimpse  of  Jesus's  idea.  He  dreamed  that  he 
might  be  a  son  of  God.  "  What  shall  I  do 
that  I  may  reach  eternal  life  ? "  he  said.  And 
Jesus  lifted  His  finger  and  pointed  out  to  him 
the  long  line  of  milestones  that  marked  the  way 
to  his  celestial  aspiration,  —  humanity,  purity, 
honesty,  brotherly  love.  They  did  not  satisfy 
the  youth.  He  knew  them  all,  and  yet  he  did 
not  get  at  what  he  wanted,  what  he  dreamed  of. 
"All  these  have  I  done.  What  lack  I  yet?" 
His  soul  was  like  a  boat  tied  fast,  but  tied  with 
a  long  rope.  It  was  able  to  struggle  up  the 
channel,  past  headland  and  light  and  buoy  that 
marked  the  way;  but  always  something  held  it 
back  from  perfectly  laying  itself  at  rest  beside 
the  golden  shore.  "What  lack  I  yet?  What 
lack  I  yet  ?"  And  then  said  Jesus,  "  Go  and  sell 
all  that  thou  hast,  and  thou  shalt  have  treasure  in 
heaven  ;  and  come  and  follow  me."  He  did  not 
say,  "  You  do  not  deserve  wealth."  He  did  not 
say  "  It  is  wicked  to  be  rich."  He  only  said, 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  43 

"  You  will  be  free  if  you  are  poor,  and  then  I  can 
lead  you  to  the  Father,  in  whom  you  shall  find 
yourself."  He  went  back,  past  the  buoys  and  head- 
lands, down  the  bay  to  where  the  rope  was  tied, 
and  cut  the  boat  loose  from  its  anchorage.  The 
sadness  with  which  the  young  man  went  away 
one  would  fain  believe  was  the  sadness  of  the 
rescued  slave,  who  misses  and  mourns  for  the 
familiar  fetter,  even  while  his  heart  begins  al- 
ready to  open  to  the  embrace  of  the  new  life  of 
liberty  that  spreads  bewilderingly,  almost  awfully 
before  him. 

I  mention  only  one  more  indication  of  the  fact 
that  the  standard  which  the  morality  of  Jesus  sets 
up  is  something  far  more  intimate  than  a  law  of 
abstract  right  and  wrong,  or  the  example  of  a 
person  between  whom  and  us  there  is  no  essen- 
tial and  indestructible  relationship.  It  is  found 
in  the  vehement  and  passionate  reaction  which 
his  teachings  and  rebukes  excited.  Jesus  went 
about  the  cities  which  lined  the  upper  shores  of 
the  Sea  of  Galilee.  He  told  the  people  of  their 
sins.  He  offered  them  the  new  life  of  obedience 
to  Him.  Instantly  there  was  an  outbreak.  They 


44  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

did  not  just  ignore  Him.  He  did  not  merely 
seem  to  them  an  enthusiast,  whom  the)  could 
brush  aside  out  of  the  reality  that  filled  their 
practical  life.  They  were  betrayed  into  that  last 
rage  which  no  man  feels  until  he  is  fighting  with 
the  highest  idea  of  himself,  the  last  and  most 
desperate  battle  of  the  human  soul.  Jesus  sees 
this,  and  there  is  pity  burning  through  and  under 
His  indignation  as  He  cries,  "  Thou  Capernaum, 
which  art  exalted  unto  heaven,  shalt  be  cast  down 
to  hell."  It  is  the  heaven  where  Capernaum  be- 
longs that  makes  the  tragedy  of  the  hell  which 
she  chooses.  And  so,  when  the  Gadarenes 
begged  the  intrusive  miracle-worker  to  depart 
out  of  their  coasts  ;  or  when  the  congregation  of 
the  synagogue  at  Nazareth  sprang  up  in  rage 
when  Jesus  preached  to  them  ;  or  when  the  cry 
of  blasphemy  arose  at  the  sight  of  the  divine 
power  that  was  in  Him  passing  beyond  the  work 
of  healing  lameness,  and  beginning  to  claim  its 
holier  and  dearer  privilege  of  forgiving  sins  ;  or 
when,  unseen,  unheard,  in  many  a  brooding  heart 
and  many  a  suspicious  whisper  that  vented  its 
querulous  maliciousness  in  the  country  lanes  and 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man,  45 

cottages,  or  in  the  palaces  or  hovels  of  Jerusalem, 
the  tide  of  hatred  slowly  gathered  which  broke 
out  at  last  with  "  Crucify  him  !  crucify  him ! " 
before  Pilate's  judgment  seat,  and  raged  in  taunts 
and  jeers  around  the  cross,  —  through  all  these 
scenes  there  is  no  sufficient  explanation  of  it  all, 
until  you  get  down  to  that  seat  wherein  the  deep- 
est power  of  mortification  and  of  rage  resides,  a 
wounded  and  wronged  conscience.  It  was  the 
national  consciousness  which,  under  that  strange 
mingling  of  nationality  and  individuality  which 
was  the  very  genius  of  Judaism,  meant  likewise 
the  consciousness  of  every  man,  the  conscious- 
ness that  the  people  was  the  people  of  God,  that 
every  man  in  it  was  the  son  of  God,  —  it  was 
this  consciousness,  summoned  to  life  by  the  pres- 
ence among  them  of  the  Son  of  God,  that  rose 
and  beat  against  the  low  conditions  of  the  life 
under  which  they  had  buried  it,  and  made  the 
tempest  whose  hoarse  tumult  we  hear  everywhere 
behind  the  gentle  voice  of  Jesus  as  we  open  the 
Gospel  doors. 

This,  then,  I  take  to  be  the  beginning  of  the 
Gospel  of  the  Son  of  God.     It  is  the  renewal 


46  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

of  the  divine  consciousness  in  every  man  as  the 
standard  by  which  he  is  to  be  judged.  And  the 
power  of  that  renewal  is  the  Incarnation.  "  The 
Word  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us";  and, 
"  to  as  many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He 
power  to  become  the  sons  of  God."  This  is 
surely  the  moral  power  of  that  which  Jesus,  when 
He  talks  with  Nicodemus,  calls  the  "  being  born 
again."  The  Pharisee  wonders.  It  seems  to 
him  as  if  the  new-found  Rabbi  told  him  some- 
thing unnatural,  something  against  the  course  of 
nature.  It  seems  to  be  a  going  back.  "  Can  a 
man  enter  a  second  time  into  his  mother's  womb 
and  be  born  ?  "  And  Jesus  answers  :  "  Yes,  it  is 
a  going  back,  only  back  much  farther  than  you 
think,  —  much  farther  than  the  mother's  womb. 
It  must  be  a  birth  from  heaven,  taking  you  back 
into  heaven  again.  It  must  be  a  birth  from 
God,  restoring  in  you  the  first  idea  of  your  exist- 
ence, that  you  are  His  child.  You  can  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  only  as,  beneath  all  its 
obscurations  and  accumulated  hindrances,  that 
idea  is  stirred  to  life,  and  you  are  born  at  once 
out  of  the  highest  heights  of  God  and  into  the 
deepest  depths  of  yourself." 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  47 

Surely  such  an  idea  of  man  makes  abundantly 
simple  that  which  has  often  seemed  so  hard  to 
understand.  I  mean  the  way  in  which  righteous- 
ness and  men's  struggles  to  be  good  have  always 
refused  to  be  confined  to  the  limits  of  any  specific 
culture  or  even  to  those  who  knew  the  name 
of  Christ.  Everywhere  throughout  the  world, 
everywhere  throughout  the  ages,  men  have 
sought  holiness.  The  best  and  noblest  men 
everywhere  have  always  been  true  seekers  after 
God.  That  is  inexplicable  if  Christianity  is  a 
new  power,  a  new  gift  to  the  faculties  of  man, 
nay,  as  it  often  seems  to  be  stated,  a  new  set  of 
faculties  in  man  which  he  has  not  possessed 
before.  But  how  entirely  explicable,  how  natural 
it  is,  if  what  the  Incarnation  did  was  to  redeem 
men  into  what  was  their  original  and  undestroyed 
nature  and  privilege!  What  wonder  that  the 
hidden  sonship  should  have  been  forever  flashing 
forth  wherever  the  crust  of  earthliness  and  sen- 
suality and  selfishness  was  thinnest !  How  di- 
vinely, as  the  dream  and  hope  of  all  the  best  souls 
that  had  ever  lived,  as  "  the  desire  of  all  na- 
tions," comes  at  last  the  Son  of  God  "  to  take 


48  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

away  sin  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself/'  by  won- 
drous and  unutterable  pain  so  to  make  manifest 
the  love  of  God  that  man's  selfishness  might  be 
broken  into  fragments,  and  the  divine  idea  of 
humanity  which  had  flashed  forth  through  cracks 
should  glow  in  one  unhindered  glory  over  all  the 
redeemed  life  of  man. 

There  is  not  one  word  of  the  argument  for 
righteousness  on  abstract  principles,  or  on  the 
ground  of  its  utility,  in  all  the  Gospels.  Jesus 
and  Socrates  are  absolutely  incomparable.  They 
start  from  different  points.  They  journey  by 
different  roads.  They  come  in  sight  of  one  an- 
other when  their  separate  journeys  mount  to  their 
highest  elevations.  They  travel  in  the  same  di- 
rection, but  they  do  not  travel  together.  The 
one  reveals  ;  the  other  argues.  And  it  is  cer- 
tainly true  of  Jesus  that  the  Christian's  eagerness 
to  show  that  all  good  and  all  methods  for  all 
good  were  embodied  in  Him  has  obscured  the 
definite  and  single  method  which  He  did  use  to 
bring  men  into  the  service  of  duty.  "  I  am  the 
Son  of  Goc "  He  said.  "  Yet  I  am  one  with 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  49 

you.  You,  too,  are  the  sons  of  God.  His  image, 
all  blurred  and  stained,  is  in  yon.  Let  me  set  it 
free,  restore  it,  redeem  it ;  and  then  you  shall 
live  by  the  law  of  your  own  renewed  wills.  The 
pattern  shall  be  in  your  hearts  when  those  hearts 
once  more  are  pure.  The  image  of  God,  mani- 
fest first  in  Me,  and  from  Me  reawakened  in  your 
own  filial  consciousness,  —  that  is  the  pattern  of 
your  life,  the  standard  of  your  duty." 

And  so  we  are  ready  now  for  the  second  point 
of  which  I  wished  to  speak.  Nothing  is  so  im- 
perfect, nothing,  indeed,  is  so  melancholy,  so 
tragical,  as  a  pattern  set  before  a  man  which  he 
has  no  power  to  attain.  It  is  like  a  boat  at  sea 
with  the  best  compass  in  the  world  on  board,  but 
neither  oars  nor  sails.  The  faithful  needle  tells 
its  story ;  there  is  no  doubt  which  way  we  ought 
to  sail ;  but  there  we  lie,  tossing  up  and  down, 
without  progress,  or  drifted  only  by  the  stupid 
sea  on  which  we  float.  Along  with  the  revelation 
of  the  Divine  pattern  in  Christ  finding  its  echo 
in  the  people's  selves  to  whom  He  spoke,  there 
must  have  come  some  motive,  some  stimulus  to 
follow  and  attain  the  pattern  which  He  set ;  and 


50  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

that,  the   more  we  read  the   Gospels,  it  grows 
evident  to  us  was  just   as   simple  and  just  as 
peculiarly  His  own  as  was  the  setting  up  of  the 
pattern.     The  motive,  too,  was  wholly  personal, 
and  was  all  based  upon  man's  filialness.     It  was 
purely  and  solely  the   elevation    to   its   highest 
power  of  that  same  force  which,  in  the  human 
family,  causes   the  father's   life   to  be   repeated 
in  the  child's.     We   call  it  love ;  but  we  must 
remember  that  full  love  always  has  two  elements, 
and  we  must  be  sure  that  we  keep  both  of  them 
in  our  thought  when  we  speak  of  the  power  by 
which  the  human  life  is  shaped  into  the  image 
of  the  Divine.     Love  is  at  once  admiration  and 
affection.     We  often  separate  the  two.     We  talk 
of  loving  some  poor  creature  in  whom  there  is 
nothing  admirable.     We  talk  of  loving  some  cold 
statue  which  makes  no  appeal  to  our  affection. 
But  really  these  are  only  mangled  parts  of  love. 
True  love,  complete  love,  finely  combines  a  pure, 
unselfish  perception  of  the  essential  quality  of 
a  character  with  a  warm  personal  gratitude  for 
what  that  character  bestows  on  us.     The  per- 
ception of  absolute  quality  saves  it  from  foolish 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  5 1 

fondness,  and  the  gratitude  rescues  it  from  being 
the  mere  dilettanteism  of  the  connoisseur.     It  is 
a  love  like  this  which  makes  the  power  of  Chris- 
tian morals.     Look,  for  instance,  at  that  great 
event  in  which  the  whole  life  and  work  of  the 
Savior  found  its  completion.     I  mean  His  cruci- 
fixion.    I  do  not  speak  now  of  the  essential  mys- 
tery which  is  in  that  wonderful  event.     I  count 
alike  foolish  and  short-sighted  the  two  men,  both 
of  whom  try  to  eliminate  and  scatter  the  mys- 
teriousness  of  the  cross  of  Christ,  one  of  them 
by  saying  that  there  is  no  peculiar  and  special 
character  in   that  strange  and  single  death,  the 
other  by  dissecting  its  power  into  its  elements 
and  trying  to  account  for  all  its  force.    I  know  that 
the  death  of  the  beggar,  the  death  of  the  baby,  has 
in  it  a  mystery  of  force  which  no  wisest  man  can 
comprehend.     I  know  that   He  whose  life   was 
one  with  the  baby's  and  the  beggar's,  and  yet  in- 
finitely deeper,  vaster,  must  have  had  a  mystery 
in  His  death  over  which  eternity  shall  keep  guard, 
husbanding  its  treasures,  and  giving  them  forth 
to  the  eternally  ripening  soul  as  it  shall  need  and 
shall  be  able  to  receive  them.     He  who  tells  me 


52  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

that  he  will  read  to  me  now  the  mystery  of  the 
death  of  Jesus,  shuts  my  ears  with  his  very  offer. 
I  will  not  let  him  tear  for  me  the  mystery  of  the 
dawn  which  no  hand  can  hasten  as  it  slowly 
brightens  to  the  full  morning.  And  so  it  is  not 
of  the  essential  mystery  of  Christ's  powerful 
death,  but  of  its  immediate  moral  power  that  I 
speak.  It  is  the  great  renewing  spectacle  of 
human  life.  When  men  look  at  it,  there  comes 
up  out  of  their  hearts  the  pattern  of  divinity 
which  is  there,  their  sonship  to  the  Holy  One ; 
and  to  attain  that  holiness,  to  realize  it  perfectly, 
becomes  the  passion  of  their  lives.  And  it  is 
love  for  the  Sufferer  which  makes  that  passion,  — 
love  with  its  two  perfect  elements  perfectly  com- 
bined. It  is  admiration  for  what  He  is  doing, 
the  unselfishness,  the  heroism,  the  godlike  pa- 
tience. And  it  is  gratitude  because  He  is  doing 
it  for  us.  It  is  these  two  that  blend  into  the  pas- 
sionate devotion  with  which  a  man,  in  the  great 
phrase  of  the  Gospels,  "  follows  after  Christ,"  — 
seeks,  that  is,  with  his  own  essential  sonship,  to 
realize  in  himself  the  sonship  of  the  Son  of  God. 
One  loves  to  think,  nay,  one  rejoices  to  be  sure. 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  53 

that  under  all  the  most  artificial  —  shall  we  not 
say  under  all  the  most  fantastic? —  theories  which 
men  have  framed  and  held  concerning  the  power 
of  the  death  of  Jesus,  this  sweet  and  reasonable 
influence  proceeding  from  it  has  always  done  its 
blessed  work.  With  silent,  soft,  and  mighty 
pressure,  the  sight  of  the  Sufferer's  holiness  and 
the  gratitude  for  the  Sufferer's  pity,  as  one  com- 
plete power,  one  perfect  love,  has  drawn  the 
depths  of  men's  lives  on  to  the  nature  of  the  Suf- 
ferer, and  there  their  oneness  to  Him  has  become 
known  to  them,  and  they,  in  and  through  Him, 
have  been  renewed  into  the  image  of  their 
Father  and  His  Father.  The  robber  who  was 
crucified  with  Him  felt  that  power  first.  It  was 
a  baptism  of  blood,  and  the  power  which  our 
baptisms  re-echo  found  its  first  utterance  in  him. 
"  Being  by  nature  born  in  sin  and  the  child  of 
wrath,"  there  by  the  fellowship  of  suffering,  there 
by  the  power  of  love,  in  which  admiration  and 
gratitude  met,  he  was  made  the  "  child  of  grace." 

Let  us  trace  now,  if  I  have  defined  it  clearly, 
some  of  the  qualities  which  this  inherent  charac- 


54  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

ter  of  the  Christian  impulse  imprints  upon  the 
Christian  morality.  And  first  of  all  I  name  that 
union  of  discontent  and  hope  which,  in  the  first 
disciples,  and  in  all  who  have  followed  in  their 
footsteps,  has  always  marked  the  progress  of  the 
Christian's  moral  life.  Remember  one  more  scene 
in  the  rich  Gospels.  It  is  once  more  the  Sea  of 
Galilee.  Simon  Peter, —  that  transparent  nature 
in  whom  we  are  able  to  trace,  as  in  the  simplest 
organism,  those  changes  and  reactions  which  be- 
come obscure  and  hard  to  trace  in  structures 
that  are  more  complete  and  complicated,  —  Si- 
mon Peter  has  Jesus  in  his  little  fishing-boat. 
And  this  time  it  is  by  some  exhibition  of  His 
power,  by  some  wonderful  draught  of  fishes  in 
the  before  empty  net,  that  the  personality  of  the 
Master  has  been  pressed  close  upon  His  disciple. 
And  then  Peter  breaks  out.  Prostrate  at  Jesus's 
knees,  "  Depart  from  me,"  he  cries,  "  for  I  am  a 
sinful  man,  O  Lord  ! "  Despondency,  almost  de- 
spair, a  deep  sight  into  his  own  heart,  a  bitter 
sense  of  contrast  with  the  nature  which  the  touch 
of  miracle,  like  a  flash  of  lightning,  had  made 
clear  to  him, —  all  this  is  in  those  passionate  and 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  55 

hurried  words.  But  what  comes  next  ?  "  When 
they  had  brought  their  ships  to  land,  they  forsook 
all  and  followed  Him."  Peter  and  all  the  rest ! 
Not  only  all  the  rest,  but  Peter!  With  the 
imploring  cry,  "  Depart ! "  yet  on  his  lips,  he 
follows  Him  whom  he  had  begged  to  go  away. 
It  was  the  power  of  love  overwhelming  the  sense 
of  unworthiness,  and  filling  him  with  hope.  It 
was  the  noble,  beautiful  inconsequence  and  in- 
consistence  of  a  great  nature  all  in  tumult,  which 
never  felt  the  attraction  of  holiness  so  irresistibly 
as  when  it  seemed  altogether  beyond  his  reach, 
and  never  so  knew  how  unholy  he  was  as  at  the 
very  moment  when  the  power  of  holiness  was 
making  him  its  slave  and  chaining  him,  a  willing 
follower  and  servant,  to  the  feet  of  the  Holy 
One.  Nothing  but  personal  love  can  hold  and 
harmonize  that  inconsistency.  Only  in  the  com- 
plete devotion  of  a  soul  that  sees  in  the  appar- 
ently unattainable  that  which  it  knows,  by  a 
sense  beyond  all  reason,  by  a  movement  of  its 
own  profoundest  consciousness,  that  it  can  and 
must  attain,  —  nothing  but  that  could  have  made 
strength  out  of  such  weakness,  and  hope  out  of 
the  very  substance  of  despair. 


Again,  I  think  that  Christ's  whole  use  of  pun- 
ishments and  threats  is  characteristic  of  the  idea 
on  which  His  whole  moral  treatment  of  humanity 
proceeds.  A  tyrant  uses  threats  and  punish- 
ments for  restriction,  desiring  to  repress  that 
which  is  mischievous  and  bad.  A  parent,  if  he 
is  truly  parental,  and  not  at  all  tyrannical,  uses 
threats  and  punishments  as  means  of  revelation 
and  enfranchisement,  that  he  may  set  free  for 
their  own  higher  action  a  knowledge  and  ability 
which  is  held  in  prison.  The  blows  of  one  are 
struck  to  bind  the  fetters  tight ;  the  other's  blows 
are  struck  to  loose  the  fetters,  that  the  limbs'  na- 
tive powers  may  go  free.  What  are  the  blows  of 
Jesus  ?  He  sends  out  His  disciples  to  do  His 
work,  to  preach  His  gospel ;  and  He  declares  to 
them  what  shall  be  the  penalty  of  unfaithfulness 
and  partial,  compromising  consecration.  "He 
that  loveth  father  or  mother  more  than  me  is  not 
worthy  of  me.  He  that  loveth  son  or  daughter 
more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me.  He  that 
findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it."  But  instantly,  — 
part  of  the  same  verse,  —  before  He  takes  His 
breath,  He  cries,  "  He  that  loseth  his  life  for  My 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  57 

sake  shall  find  it."  The  threat  is  nothing  to 
Him.  He  does  not  care  to  inspire  fear  unless, 
startled  and  stirred  by  danger,  the  men  to  whom 
He  speaks  can  be  made  to  tremble  down  so  deep 
that  the  capacity  of  being  all  that  He  wants  them 
to  be  shall  wake  out  of  its  slumber  and  stand 
upon  its  feet,  and,  shaking  the  very  thought  of 
fear  away,  go  forth  to  a  duty  which  has  its  only 
inspiration  in  the  consciousness  of  privilege  and 
in  the  thought  of  blessing.  He  always  shakes 
the  sleepy  soul,  not  as  the  jailer,  who  rouses  the 
wretch  upon  his  execution  morning,  to  lead  him 
to  his  death,  but  as  the  watchman,  who  puts  the 
sword  into  the  drowsy  soldier's  hand  that  he  may 
go  and  fight  his  battle.  It  is  as  a  revelation  of 
blessing  by  the  dreadfulness  of  its  opposite.  It 
is  as  the  golden  medal  shown  on  its  reverse,  with 
all  its  deep  depressions  only  indicating  the  prom- 
ontories of  happiness  and  goodness  which  its 
true  face  contains.  It  is  thus  that  Jesus  always 
threatens  men  with  punishment.  The  tutor  of  a 
French  prince,  I  have  read,  used  to  tie  a  rod  to 
the  child's  sash  when  he  had  deserved  to  be  pun- 
ished for  a  fault.  It  was  an  appeal  to  his  prince- 


58  The  Infltteiice  of  Jesus 

liness.  It  was  the  suggestion  and  reminder  of 
how  a  prince  ought  to  behave.  It  was  an  appeal 
to  his  native  nobility,  and  not  to  his  fear  of  pain. 
It  seems  to  me  as  if  every  threatening  of  Christ 
were  an  appeal  to  the  native  princeliness  of  man, 
to  his  royal  nature  as  the  son  of  the  King  of 
kings,  a  sacred  being  to  whom  sin  is  eternally 
unnatural  and  punishment  a  dreadful  anomaly 
and  shame. 

And  yet  again  I  find  the  same  meaning  in  the 
wise  and  measured  use  which  Jesus  always  makes 
of  the  machinery  of  duty  and  of  the  forms  of 
righteousness  in  their  relation  to  the  impulse  of 
duty  and  the  purpose  of  righteousness.  These 
last  are  never  for  a  moment  lost  from  sight.  The 
kingliness  of  the  impulse,  the  subordination  of 
the  instrument  and  the  form,  are  never  allowed 
to  become  obscure.  An  abandonment  of  all 
forms  and  outward  instruments  is  very  easy.  A 
true  adjustment  of  them  to  the  unseen  purposes 
which  they  subserve  is  as  rare  as  it  is  hard,  as 
hard  as  it  is  rare.  It  is  in  the  healthiest  and 
truest  family  life  that  their  balance  is  most  per- 
fectly preserved.  And  when  the  Lord  insists  oo 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  59 


celebrating  His  profound  spiritual  consecration 
by  being  baptized  in  Jordan  ;  when,  in  His  kingli- 
ness,  He  does  not  refuse  to  pay  His  tribute  ;  when 
He  sends  the  poor  leper,  who  is  already  cured,  to 
get  his  warrant  of  restored  health  from  the  priest; 
when  He  bids  His  disciples  observe  and  do  what- 
soever the  Pharisees  who  sit  in  Moses's  seat  shall 
bid  them  do,  —  in  all  these  cases  it  is  the  law  of 
the  family  life  which  He  is  laying  down  to  them, 
the  law  which  reaches  back  to  the  fact,  but  yet 
does  not  neglect  the  method,  and  through  the 
form  tries  to  shape  the  substance  for  its  maturer 
life.  It  is  the  perfection  of  that  instinct  with 
which  the  dying  Socrates,  having  left  his  rich 
legacy  of  spiritual  teaching  to  his  scholars,  with 
his  last  breath  bids  them  not  forget  the  cock 
for  ^Esculapius,  which  was  the  formal  type  and 
expression  of  his  piety. 

I  have  only  one  more  suggestion  to  offer  on 
this  head.  There  are  words  of  Jesus,  here  and 
there,  in  which  He  distinctly  sets  His  own  faith 
fulness  as  the  type  and  inspiration  of  the  faithful- 
ness which  He  expects  of  His  disciples.  Listen 
to  the  solemnity  which  is  in  His  voice  as,  at  the 


60  The  Influence  of  Jesus 


table  of  the  Last  Supper,  He  looks  up  into  His 
Father's  face  and  prays  for  these,  His  brethren  . 
"As  Thou  has  sent  Me  into  the  world,  even  so 
have  I  also  sent  them  into  the  world.  Sanctify 
them  through  Thy  truth."  Or,  just  before,  look- 
ing directly  into  the  disciples'  eyes,  "  This  is  my 
commandment,  that  ye  love  one  another  as  I 
have  loved  you."  And  yet  again,  "  I  in  them 
and  Thou  in  Me,  that  they  all  may  be  one  in  Us." 
Who  can  read  words  like  these  and  not  catch 
sight  of  what  it  was  that  was  to  fill  these  disci- 
ples' lives  with  energy,  and  to  be  the  atmos- 
phere wherein  their  new  goodness  should  get  all 
its  growth  ?  God's  fatherhood  to  them  made 
visible  in  Christ,  His  Son  ;  their  sonship  to  God 
made  visible  in  Christ,  their  brother.  It  was  as 
if,  at  the  beginning  of  all  the  ages  down  which 
their  Christian  life  has  run,  they  lay,  like  Jacob 
on  the  night  when  he  went  out  to  his  new  life 
from  his  father's  house,  and  to  them,  as  to  him. 
a  ladder  seemed  to  stretch  up  into  heaven,  and 
the  angels  of  God  ascended  and  descended  on 
it,  —  the  angels  of  duty  bringing  God's  strength 
to  men,  and  carrying  men's  obedience  to  God,  on 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  61 

the  ladder  of  the  fatherhood  and  son  ship  that 
bound  the  heavens  to  the  earth,  set  up  in  the 
new  Beth-el,  the  new  House  of  God,  which  was 
the  life  of  Jesus. 

It  only  remains  that  we  should  point  out  what 
must  be  some  of  the  perpetual  marks  of  a  moral- 
ity which  is  the  outgrowth  of  such  a  faith  as 
ours.  Those  marks  belong  to  the  Christian 
morality  of  all  times.  They  are  not  separable 
from  it.  When  we  look  into  the  future  and  see 
the  goodness  of  humanity  developing  within  the 
idea  of  Jesus,  we  must  expect  to  see  a  greater 
and  greater  prominence  of  those  marks  in  it. 
When  we  seek  our  own  moral  development  from 
Him,  we  must  look  for  it  in  the  only  kind 
which  His  method  can  bestow. 

The  first  mark  will  be  the  prominence  of 
what  we  may  call  the  duties  of  sentiment. 
"  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord."  "  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  brother."  Thou  shalt  love.  The  duty  of 
loving,  —  there  is  nothing  of  that  in  the  codes  of 
abstract  duty.  It  is  impossible  to  exclude  that 
from  its  fundamental  place  in  the  system  of  duty 
whose  constant  spring  is  in  the  fatherhood  of 


62  The  Inflitence  of  Jesus 


God.  But  evidently  this  quality,  this  exaltation 
of  the  duty  of  sentiment  over  the  duty  of  action, 
which  makes  the  action  valuable  simply  as  an 
utterance  of  the  sentiment,  —  this  is  a  most  im- 
portant quality  It  cannot  be  ignored.  It  gives 
the  color  and  tone  to  all  the  morality  which  it 
pervades.  It  exposes  that  morality,  no  doubt, 
at  the  outset,  to  the  charge  and  the  danger 
of  weakness  and  sentimentality,  but  in  the  end 
it  gives  it  a  buoyancy  and  elasticity  and  per- 
petual vitality  which  prophesy  for  it  a  perma- 
nence as  endless  as  the  Being  in  whose  love  it 
lives  is  everlasting  ;  and  so  it  is  the  one  moral- 
ity for  which  we  can  predict  no  end.  Of  this 
quality  in  duty  it  is  no  Christian's  place  to  be 
ashamed  or  afraid.  None  of  us  may  melt  it 
away  or  sink  it  out  of  sight.  In  its  prominence 
lies  the  soul  of  the  duty  that  we  do.  We  may 
not  try  to  make  that  duty  cold  and  soulless  which 
has  its  true  being  in  the  central  commandment 
which  is  its  living  soul,  —  "  Thou  shalt  love." 

Another  mark  of  the  Christian  morality,  the 
morality  whose  root  is  in  the  sonship  of  the  soul 
to  God,  is  the  harmony  with  which  it  holds  the 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  63 

absoluteness  of  goodness  and  the  various  respon- 
sibilities of  men,  It  is  full  of  discriminations 
which  yet  never  tamper  with  the  unchangeable 
sanctity  of  righteousness.  As  in  the  parable  of 
Him  from  whom  it  all  proceeds,  so,  in  the  life 
which  that  parable  describes,  the  different  talents 
of  different  servants  are  fully  taken  into  the 
account.  Duty  is  measured  by  chance,  and  yet 
the  essential  idea  of  duty  is  never  weakened.  I 
am  bound  to  do  less  than  you,  but  I  am  just  as 
severely  bound  to  do  my  little  as  you  are  to  do 
your  much.  Where  else  could  those  ideas  be 
kept  in  perfect  harmony  and  peace,  neither  of 
them  hurting  the  other,  but  within  the  larger 
idea  of  fatherhood  ?  In  what  group  could  the 
child  take  his  little  task,  fitted  to  his  little  hands, 
and  do  it,  with  the  entire  conviction  that  he 
must  do  it,  and,  nevertheless,  not  vexed  nor  be- 
wildered by  the  sight  of  tasks  a  thousand  times 
greater  than  his  own  being  done  close  by  his  side  ; 
and,  at  the  same  time,  the  great  man,  the  hero, 
dedicate  himself  to  his  vast  work  with  no  sense 
of  oppression  or  injustice,  nor  with  any  feeling  of 
superiority  or  pride,  —  in  what  group  could  these 


64  The  Influence  of  Jesuit 

two  faithful  souls  work  on,  in  such  difference 
and  yet  in  such  identity,  but  in  a  family  where 
every  child  has  his  own  special  duty,  great  or 
small,  clothed  with  the  absoluteness  of  the  Father- 
hood which  is  over  all  ?  Where,  but  in  the  family 
idea  of  man,  can  these  two  necessary  conceptions 
of  the  difference  of  duties  and  the  absoluteness  of 
duty  meet  in  perfect  peace  ? 

I  note  again,  as  a  characteristic  of  the  morality 
of  sonship,  the  way  in  which  it  secures  humility 
by  aspiration  and  not  by  depression.  How  to  se- 
cure humility  is  the  hard  problem  of  all  systems 
of  duty.  He  who  does  work,  just  in  proportion  to 
the  faithfulness  with  which  he  does  it,  is  always 
in  danger  of  self-conceit.  Very  often  men  seem 
to  have  given  up  the  problem  in  despair,  and  they 
lavish  unstinted  praise  upon  the  vigorous,  effec- 
tive worker  without  any  qualifying  blame  of  the 
arrogance  with  which  he  flaunts  the  duty  that 
he  does  in  the  world's  face.  "  The  only  way  to 
make  him  humble,"  they  would  seem  to  say, 
"  would  be  to  make  him  idle.  Let  him  stop  doing 
duty  and  then,  indeed,  he  might  stop  boasting. 
His  arrogance  is  only  the  necessary  price  that  the 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  65 

world  and  he  pay  for  his  faithfulness."  To  such  a 
problem  the  Christian  morality  brings  its  vast  con- 
ception of  the  universe.  Above  each  man  it  sets 
the  infinite  life.  The  identity  of  nature  between 
that  life  and  his,  while  it  enables  him  to  emulate 
that  life,  compels  him,  also,  to  compare  himself 
with  it.  The  more  zealously  he  aspires  to  imitate 
it,  the  more  clearly  he  must  encounter  the  com- 
parison. The  higher  he  climbs  the  mountain, 
the  more  he  learns  how  the  high  mountain  is  past 
his  climbing.  It  is  the  oneness  of  the  soul's  life 
with  God's  life  that  at  once  makes  us  try  to  be 
like  Him  and  brings  forth  our  unlikeness  to  Him. 
It  is  the  source  at  once  of  aspiration  and  humility. 
The  more  aspiration, the  morehumility.  Humility 
comes  by  aspiration.  If,  in  all  Christian  history, 
it  has  been  the  souls  which  most  looked  up  that 
were  the  humblest  souls  ;  if  to-day  the  rescue  of  a 
soul  from  foolish  pride  must  be  not  by  a  deprecia- 
tion of  present  attainment,  but  by  opening  more 
and  more  the  vastness  of  the  future  possibility  ; 
if  the  Christian  man  keeps  his  soul  full  of  the 
sense  of  littleness,  even  in  all  his  hardest  work 
for  Christ,  not  by  denying  his  own  stature,  but 
s 


66  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

by  standing  up  at  his  "whole  height,  and  then 
looking  up  in  love  and  awe  and  seeing  God  tower 
into  infinitude  above  him,  —  certainly  all  this 
stamps  the  morality  which  is  wrought  out  within 
the  idea  of  Jesus  with  this  singular  excellence, 
that  it  has  solved  the  problem  of  faithfulness  and 
pride,  and  made  possible  humility  by  aspiration. 

And  yet,  once  more,  the  morality  of  Jesus  in- 
volves the  only  true  secret  of  courage  and  of  the 
freedom  that  comes  of  courage.  More  and  more 
we  come  to  see  that  courage  is  a  positive  thing. 
It  is  not  simply  the  absence  of  fear.  To  be  brave 
is  not  merely  not  to  be  afraid.  Courage  is  that 
compactness  and  clear  coherence  of  all  a  man's 
faculties  and  powers  which  makes  his  manhood 
a  single  operative  unit  in  the  world.  That  is 
the  reason  why  narrowness  of  thought  and  life 
often  brings  a  kind  of  courage,  and  why,  as  men's 
range  of  thought  enlarges  and  their  relations 
with  their  fellowmen  increase,  there  often  comes 
a  strange  timidity.  The  bigot  is  often  very 
brave.  He  is  held  fast  unto  a  unit,  and  pos- 
sesses himself  completely  in  his  own  selfishness. 
For  such  a  bravery  as  that  the  man  and  the 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  67 

world  both  pay  very  dear.  But  when  the  grasp 
that  holds  a  man  and  his  powers  is  not  his  self- 
consciousness  but  his  obedience  to  his  Father, 
when  loyalty  to  Him  surrounds  and  aggregates 
the  man's  capacities,  so  that,  held  in  His  hand, 
the  man  feels  his  distinctiveness,  his  distinctive 
duty,  his  distinctive  privilege,  then  you  have 
reached  the  truth  of  which  the  bigot's  courage 
was  the  imitation.  Then  you  have  secured  cour- 
age, not  by  the  limitation,  but  by  the  enlargement 
of  the  life.  Then  the  dependence  upon  God 
makes  the  independence  of  man  in  which  are 
liberty  and  courage.  The  man's  own  personality 
is  found  only  in  the  household  of  his  Father,  and 
only  in  the  finding  of  his  personality  does  he 
come  to  absolute  freedom  and  perfect  fearlessness. 

May  I  take  a  moment  now  before  I  close  to 
recapitulate  the  points  along  the  journey  which 
we  have  travelled  together  to-night?  We  found 
the  family  character  of  Christian  duty  —  the  way 
in  which  it  gathered  its  source  out  of  the  essen- 
tial sonship  of  man  to  God  —  indicated  in  the 
meeting,  firr.t,  of  the  pattern  of  righteousness 


68  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

and  the  power  of  righteousness  ;  and,  second,  of 
reasonableness  and  authority  in  all  the  duty 
which  the  New  Testament  enjoins.  This  I  tried 
to  show  you  in  the  text-book  of  duty,  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount. 

Then  I  tried  to  show  where  the  moral  standard 
was  put  by  Jesus.  It  is  in  the  heart  of  every 
son  of  God  made  conscious  of  his  sonship  by  the 
Son  of  God,  who  is  Jesus. 

Then  we  traced  the  nature  of  this  standard  as 
it  was  actually  shown,  first,  in  the  combination 
of  severity  and  goodness  in  the  treatment  cf  man 
by  Jesus  ;  second,  in  the  character  of  His  teaching 
about  self-sacrifice ;  and  third,  in  the  vehement 
opposition  and  hatred  which  His  life  excited. 

At  the  same  time  we  saw  that  while  this 
standard  came  to  its  full  manifestation  in  Chris- 
tianity, it  had  been  struggling  for  utterance 
through  all  the  religious  life  of  man. 

Passing,  then,  from  the  standard  of  morals  to 
the  motive  of  morals  as  Jesus  established  it,  it 
seemed  to  be  love,  justly  and  fully  composed  of 
its  two  elements  of  admiring  appreciation  and 
personal  gratitude. 


On  the  Moral  Life  of  Man.  69 

The  working  of  this  motive  we  saw,  first,  in 
the  play  of  discontent  and  hope  which  charac- 
terizes all  the  moral  life  of  Christianity ;  second, 
in  the  use  which  Jesus  makes  of  threats  and 
punishments  ;  third,  in  the  relation  which  He 
establishes  between  forms  and  methods  on  the 
one  hand  and  impulses  and  purposes  upon  the 
other;  and,  fourth,  in  His  distinct  embrace  of  all 
motive  within  His  own  person. 

And  last  of  all  I  tried  to  show  how  Christian 
morality,  as  the  result  of  all  that  I  had  pointed 
out  before,  was  marked  supremely  by  the  duties 
of  sentiment,  by  combination  of  absoluteness  and 
breadth  with  personal  definiteness,  by  the  effort 
to  secure  humility  through  aspiration,  and  by 
the  courage  which  is  born  of  obedience. 

I  know  full  well  how  lightly  I  have  travelled 
over  such  vast,  rich  ground,  and  how  much  of  its 
riches  I  have  left  ungathered.  I  can  only  hope 
that  I  have  shown  some  thoughtful  people  where 
the  riches  lie,  that  they  may  go  themselves  and 
gather  them. 

It  was  in  His  sonship  to  God  that  the  secret 
of  the  holiness  of  Jesus  lay.  His  Father's  busi- 


7O  The  Influence  of  Jesus. 

ness  was  the  sum  of  all  His  life.  He  knew  no 
motive  except  that  which  was  summed  up  in 
the  gratitude  of  His  great  prayer:  "Father,  I 
have  glorified  Thee  on  the  earth :  I  have  fin- 
ished the  work  which  Thou  gavest  Me  to  do." 
The  model  and  the  impulse  of  all  duty  He 
carried  in  His  own  filial  heart,  which  was  forever 
bearing  witness  to  Him  of  His  Father's  perfect- 
ness.  His  incarnate  days,  with  all  their  common 
duties  held  and  illuminated  in  that  high  con- 
sciousness of  sonship,  must  have  been  one  with 
the  eternity  of  the  past  and  the  eternity  that  was 
to  be.  Duty  must  have  been  its  own  revealer 
and  its  own  reward.  Liberty  must  have  been 
sublimely  consistent  with  the  most  scrupulous 
obedience.  The  doing  right  and  the  being  right 
must  have  been  like  the  sunshine  and  the  sun. 
And  what  duty  was  to  our  Master  it  shall  be  to 
us  just  as  soon  as  we  are  filled  with  His  idea, 
just  as  soon  as  His  spirit  bears  witness  with  our 
spirits  that  we  too  are  the  sons  of  God 


II. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  JESUS 

ON  THE  SOCIAL  LIFE  OF  MAN. 


THE    INFLUENCE    OF   JESUS 

ON   THE   SOCIAL  LIFE   OF   MAN. 


A  TRAVELLER  in  the  Old  World  is  deeply 
interested  in  seeing  what  are  the  most 
complete  embodiments  of  themselves  which  the 
different  struggles  of  human  nature  in  thought  and 
devotion,  have  left  in  art.  I  remember  well  the 
impression  of  contrast  which  I  received  from  two 
when  I  saw  them  for  the  first  time,  many  years 
ago.  In  one  of  the  most  rich  and  beautiful  of 
European  galleries  hangs  Raphael's  greatest  Ma- 
donna, called  the  Madonna  of  St.  Sixtus.  Among 
the  dreary  sands  at  the  edge  of  the  Egyptian 
desert,  under  the  shadow  of  the  Pyramids,  stands 
the  mighty  Sphinx,  the  work  of  unknown  hands, 
so  calm  and  so  eternal  in  its  solitude  that  it  is 
hard  to  think  of  it  as  the  work  of  human  hands 
at  all  ;  as  true  a  part  of  the  great  earth,  it  seems, 
as  any  mountain  that  pierces  upward  from  its 
bosom.  These  two  suggest  comparisons  which 


74  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

are  certainly  not  fancies.  They  are  the  two 
great  expressions,  in  art,  of  the  two  religions, 
—  the  religion  of  the  East  and  of  the  West. 
Fatalism  and  Providence  they  seem  to  mean. 
Both  have  tried  to  express  a  union  of  humanity 
with  something  which  is  its  superior;  but  one 
has  joined  it  only  to  the  superior  strength  of  the 
animal,  while  the  other  has  filled  it  with  the 
superior  spirituality  of  a  divine  nature.  One 
unites  wisdom  and  power,  and  claims  man's  hom- 
age for  that  conjunction.  The  other  combines 
wisdom  and  love,  and  says, "Worship  this."  The 
Sphinx  has  life  in  its  human  face  written  into  a 
riddle,  a  puzzle,  a  mocking  bewilderment.  The 
Virgin's  face  is  full  of  a  mystery  we  cannot  fathom* 
but  it  unfolds  to  us  a  thousand  of  the  mysteries 
of  life.  It  does  not  mock,  but  blesses  us.  The 
Sphinx  oppresses  us  with  colossal  size.  The  Vir- 
gin is  not  a  distortion  or  exaggeration,  but  a  glo- 
rification of  humanity.  The  Egyptian  monster  is 
alone  amid  its  sands,  to  be  worshipped,  not  loved. 
The  Christian  woman  has  her  child  clasped  in 
her  arms,  enters  into  the  societies  and  sympathies 
of  men,  and  claims  no  worship  except  love. 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  75 

It  is  in  this  last  difference  —  the  difference 
between  the  solitude  of  one  and  the  companion- 
ship of  the  other —  that  we  feel,  I  think,  mos1 
distinctly  how  different  is  the  Christianity  of  the 
picture  from  the  sublime  paganism  of  the  statue. 
The  picture  is  Christian,  because  it  is  so  truly  hu- 
man. It  has  not  lost  humanity  in  trying  to  inter- 
pret Deity.  It  invites,  entices,  wins  the  soul  of  the 
man  who  studies  it.  It  folds  itself  about  his  life 
with  a  kindred  life.  It  wants  him.  It  seeks  him. 
It  is  not  satisfied  till  it  has  found  him.  Then, 
as  if  it  were  satisfied,  there  seems  to  come  a  new 
depth  in  its  color,  a  new  sweetness  in  its  celestial 
light. 

I  am  to  speak  to  you  to-day  of  the  way  in 
which  the  influence  of  Jesus  enters  into  the 
social  life  of  man.  I  have  been  led  to  this 
remembrance  of  what  we  may  almost  call  the 
constructive  power  in  a  great  work  of  Christian 
art.  It  is  positive,  and  finds  and  fastens  the  re- 
lationship of  human  souls  to  the  Divine  soul,  and  so 
of  human  souls  to  one  another.  As  I  began  to 
write  this  lecture,  in  the  midst  of  the  Christmas 
days,  I  could  not  help  feeling  how  the  same  idea 


76  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

was  present  in  that  ever-vivid  scene  of  Bethlehem, 
which  shines  in  the  simple  and  inspired  words  of 
the  first  chapters  of  the  Gospels  with  a  clearness 
and  a  depth  that  the  pencil  of  Raphael  could 
never  give.  A  father,  a  mother,  and  a  child  are 
there.  No  religion  which  began  like  that  could 
ever  lose  its  character.  The  first  unit  of  human  life, 
the  soul,  is  there  in  the  new-born  personality  of 
the  childhood.  But  the  second  unit  of  human 
life,  the  family,  is  just  as  truly  there  in  the 
familiar  relation  of  husband  and  wife,  and  the  sa- 
cred, eternal  mystery  of  motherhood.  He  who 
would  know  the  whole  about  this  Jesus  must  learn 
not  merely  what  his  own  soul  will  grow  to  be,  but 
likewise  what  new  life  the  presence  of  Jesus  in 
the  midst  of  it  will  give  to  this  the  primal  typal 
group  of  human  life  and  to  all  the  other  groups, 
the  larger  families  which  this  one  represents. 

Let  me  define,  then,  in  a  few  words,  what  I 
want  to  do  to-day.  It  is  to  show  how  the  idea  of 
Jesus  is  the  constructive  power  of  the  social  life 
of  man  in  all  its  various  degrees.  That  idea  we 
saw  in  our  last  lecture  was  the  sonship  of  man 
to  God,  levealed  in  the  sonship  to  God  of  Jesus 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man,  77 

Christ  himself.  All  that  He  had  to  show  man  He 
had  first  in  Himself;  and  it  was  by  the  develop- 
ment in  men's  sight  of  His  own  gradually  con- 
scious life  that  He  revealed  to  men  all  that  they 
might  become.  If  this  -be  true,  then  it  is  by 
a  study  of  the  social  life  of  Jesus,  by  seeing 
how  His  experience  from  the  very  beginning 
opened  into  successive  relationships,  and  claimed 
for  itself  larger  and  yet  larger  intercourses, 
that  we  can  get  His  true  idea  of  how  the  rela- 
tionships and  intercourses  of  all  men  ought  to 
be  built,  how  that  idea  of  the  Divine  Father 
may  become  the  shaping  and  cohesive  power  of 
them  all.  This  makes  the  duty  that  lies  before 
us  once  more  a  Biblical  study.  In  those  old 
stories  of  the  Gospels  lies  our  material.  Every 
one  of  those  stories  is  the  idea  of  Jesus  flashed 
from  a  new  side  of  His  jewel  life.  All  that  the 
fatherhood  of  God  may  be  to  any  of  His  children 
it  was  first  and  perfectly  to  that  only-begotten 
Son.  If  we  can  see  what  He  was  among  his 
fellow-men  and  what  His  life  among  them  was  to 
Him,  we  shall  have  the  key  to  all  the  mysteries 
and  prob'ems  of  our  own  social  life. 


78  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

In  the  first  place,  then,  the  social  life  of 
Jesus  underwent  the  natural  and  human  progress 
and  change  from  an  instinctive  impulse  to  a  de- 
liberate and  reasonable  conduct.  He  would  have 
been  no  true  child  and  man,  He  would  have  been 
a  human  monster,  if  it  had  not  been  so.  I  think 
that  it  is  a  most  happy  sign  of  the  healthy  reality 
which  the  life  of  Jesus  is  gaining  in  men's 
thoughts  in  these  our  modern  days,  thax  this 
idea  of  the  development  of  his  consciousness, 
the  gradual  growth  into  the  knowledge  and  the 
use  of  His  own  nature,  is  no  longer  an  idea  that 
bewilders  and  shocks  the  believer  in  the  Lord's 
divinity.  It  is  felt  to  be  a  necessary  part  of  the 
belief  in  His  humanity.  Two  centuries,  perhaps 
one  century,  ago,  I  think  that  Christ  was  far  less 
real  to  men  than  He  is  now.  However  it  may 
have  been  with  the  last  century,  the  century  be- 
fore the  last  was  a  religious  age.  But  its  religion 
had  grown  strangely  impersonal.  It  believed 
doctrines  far  more  than  it  believed  in  the  Son  of 
Man.  The  seventeenth  century  believed  the  di- 
vinity of  Christ,  but  its  belief  in  the  divine  Christ 
was  weak,  and  the  belief  in  the  human  Christ 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  79 

was  wellnigh  lost,  and  with  this  loss  I  cannot  but 
feel  that  we  must  in  some  way  connect  the  dis- 
like of  Christmas  and  its  observance  which 
then  arose,  and  which  is  but  just  now  passing 
entirely  away.  It  had  its  local  causes,  which 
account  for  it,  no  doubt.  But  the  whole  idea  of 
childhood,  with  its  necessary  concomitant  idea 
of  growth,  was  a  bewilderment  and  almost  an 
offence  to  that  theology  whose  Christ  was  a  mys- 
terious and  unaccountable  being,  a  true  spiritual 
Melchisedec,  without  vivid  and  real  human  asso- 
ciations, without  age,  without  realized  locality,  a 
dogma,  a  creed,  a  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  an  ad- 
justment of  relations,  not  a  man.  It  is  because 
Jesus  to-day  is  intensely  real,  intensely  human 
to  us,  that  we  welcome  and  do  not  dread 
the  truth  of  increase  and  development  from 
babyhood  to  the  full  strength  and  stature  of  a 
man. 

And  nowhere  is  this  clearer  or  more  beautiful 
than  in  that  feature  of  His  life  which  we  have  to- 
day to  study.  The  social  life  of  Christ  was  first 
an  instinct.  The  child  clasped  His  tiny  arms 
about  His  mother's  neck,  or  laid  His  little  hand 


8o  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

into  the  strong  hand  of  Joseph,  as  they  walked 
on  the  long  road  to  Egypt,  with  the  same  simple 
desire  to  utter  love  and  to  find  love  which  is  the 
first  sign  of  Life  akin  to  their  own  that  millions  of 
parents'  hearts  have  leaped  to  recognize  in  their 
first-born.  Nay,  he  but  little  understands  the 
dignity  and  unity  of  all  God's  vast  creation  who 
is  offended  or  distressed  when  he  is  told  that  in  the 
Lord  of  Life  these  primal  affections  were  of  the 
same  sort  with  those  which  make  the  beauty  of 
the  life  of  the  beings  which  are  less  than  man. 
Even  the  dog,  the  bird,  the  lion,  know  these  first 
instincts  of  companionship  which  found  their  con- 
summate exhibition  upon  earth  when  the  Son  of 
Mary  clung  to  a  human  mother  with  a  human  love. 
That  instinctive  character  never  passed  out  of  the 
relationships  of  Christ.  When  He  bade  the  disci- 
ples go  with  Him  to  the  mountain  of  transfigura- 
tion or  to  the  garden  of  the  agony,  beneath  every 
design  of  their  enlargement  or  enlightenment,  who 
does  not  feel  beating  the  simple  human  desire 
for  company  in  the  supremely  triumphant  or 
supremely  terrible  moments  of  life  ?  When 
He  looks  at  His  disciples,  as  the  multitude  are 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man,  8 1 

leaving  Him,  and  asks  them,  "  Will  ye  also  go 
away?"  or  when  these  same  disciples  forsake 
Him  and  flee  upon  the  night  of  trial,  below  the 
sorrow  that  He  feels  for  their  defection  as  a  sign 
of  their  unworthiness,  who  does  not  hear  the  poor 
heart  cry  out  with  that  same  dread  of  being  left 
alone  which  the  forlorn  wretch  in  his  prison  feels 
as  the  cell  door  clashes  to  between  him  and  hu- 
manity ?  We  must  start  with  this  instinct,  and 
always  this  instinct  must  remain,  felt  like  the 
beating  heart  which  makes  it  live,  underneath 
all  the  fuller  understanding  of  itself  into  which 
the  companionship  of  Christ,  his  social  life, 
may  grow.  But  such  a  growing  understand- 
ing comes.  As  Jesus  develops  into  manhood,  the 
idea  of  His  existence  grows  and  rounds  itself  to 
clearness.  By  and  by  He  is  full  of  the  conscious- 
ness that  He  is  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  through 
His  sonship  this  world-full  of  men  is  to  learn  that 
they  are  God's  sons  and  are  to  be  brought  back 
to  their  Father.  And  when  He  had  been  filled 
with  that  idea,  then  the  instinct  which  had 
already  drawn  Him  to  his  brethren  found  its  in- 
terpretation. He  knew  why  He  sought  them. 


82  7  he  Influence  of  Jesus 

It  was  for  the  self-indulgence  of  His  own  con- 
sciousness, and  it  was  for  the  enlightenment  of 
theirs.  By  and  by,  if  I  ask  why  Jesus  shrink? 
from  solitude,  and  craves  to  have  John  and  James 
and  Peter  with  him,  I  find  myself  able  to  say, 
I  find  myself  compelled  to  say,  something  more 
than  just  that  such  is  His  healthy  human  instinct. 
I  recognize  that  He  is  deliberately  seeking  two 
things  there  :  first,  the  self-knowledge  of  His  own 
sonship  to  God  ;  and,  second,  the  enlightenment 
of  these  men's  consciousness  to  know  that  they 
are  the  sons  of  God.  I  see  the  sun  break  in  with 
a  triumphant  burst  of  light  upon  a  chamber  set 
with  countless  jewels,  but  which  has  thus  far 
been  wholly  shut  up  in  the  dark.  There  is  a 
double  joy,  I  think,  in  the  great  heart  of  the  sun- 
light as,  almost  with  a  shout  that  one  can  hear, 
it  floods  the  opened  chamber  with  itself.  First,  it 
finds  new  interpretation  of  itself,  it  finds  itself,  as 
it  were,  in  the  new  stories  of  its  glory  which  the 
jewels  tell,  as,  one  by  one,  they  burn  under  its 
touch  ;  and,  second,  it  feels  every  jewel  quiver 
under  its  fiery  hand  with  the  transporting  discov- 
ery of  its  own  nature.  I  see  a  good  man,  long 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  83 

shut  out  from  human  company,  come  among  his 
brethren.  With  a  leap  and  burst  almost  like  the 
sunshine,  he  casts  his  solitude  behind  him  and 
flings  himself  into  their  sympathies  and  hopes.  I 
let  the  explanation  of  it  at  first  rest  in  the  mere 
unexplained  instinct  of  humanity  ;  but  when 
I  come  to  analyze  his  motive  to  its  elements,  I 
know  that  it  must  be  made  up  of  these  two  im- 
pulses, the  desire  of  self-knowledge  and  the  de- 
sire of  illuminating  others,  the  desire  of  burning 
and -the  desire  of  shining,  which  are  the  two 
strong,  ineradicable  passions  of  the  soul.  The  man 
goes  into  the  multitude  that  he  may  find  himself 
and  that  he  may  declare  them  to  themselves. 
All  human  society  which  has  not  these  impulses 
more  or  less  consciously  within  it  is  but  the 
herding  of  animals  for  the  mere  fear  of  being 
alone  or  the  mere  joy  of  being  together. 

All  this  is  illustrated  with  great  clearness  in 
that  event  which  has  a  profound  interest  as 
marking  the  first  recorded  time  when  Jesus  ever 
deliberately  and  of  His  own  accord  sought  the 
society  of  His  fellow-men.  He  lingered  behind 
the  group  into  which  the  mere  circumstances  of 


84  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

His  life  had  cast  Him,  and  for  Himself  He  sought 
the  venerable  doctors  in  the  Temple.  What  took 
Him  there  ?  To  find  Himself  and  to  show  them 
to  themselves.  The  two  great,  everlasting  hu- 
man impulses,  the  impulse  of  the  student  seeking 
to  know  himself,  and  the  impulse  of  the  mis- 
sionary seeking  to  enlighten  men,  —  these  two, 
which  partial  men  call  inconsistent  and  incom- 
patible with  one  another,  burned  with  a  single 
flame — the  first  no  doubt  the  brightest,  but  yet 
incapable  of  being  separated  from  the  other  —  in 
the  soul  of  Jesus,  as,  among  His  brethren,  He 
began  to  "  be  about  His  Father's  business." 

In  general,  then,  the  social  nature  of  man  is 
the  provision  at  once  for  his  most  complete  self- 
consciousness  and  for  his  fullest  activity  and 
efficiency.  It  was  by  losing  His  life  in  the  mul- 
titude and  mass  of  lives,  in  the  body  of  the 
humanity  to  which  He  belonged,  that  Jesus  at 
once  found  His  own  life  and  found  the  lives  of 
the  lost  whom  He  had  come  to  seek.  At  the 
very  outset  He  bore  witness  that  not  in  absolute 
singleness,  not  in  elemental  unity  and  perfeci 
solitude  of  being,  is  the  highest  existence  to  be 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  85 

found.  He  recognized  at  once  in  man  that 
multiplicity  and  power  of  relationship  within  the 
unit  of  humanity  which  makes  the  richness  of 
our  human  life.  If  it  be  so,  as  we  believe  it  is, 
that  in  the  constitution  of  humanity  we  have  the 
fairest  written  analogue  and  picture  of  the  Divine 
existence,  then  shall  we  not  say  that  the  human 
Christ  gave  us,  in  the  value  which  He  set  on 
human  relationships,  in  His  social  thought  of 
man,  an  insight  into  the  essentialness  and 
value  of  that  social  thought  of  God  which  we 
call  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  ?  May  it  not  be 
that  only  by  multiplicity  and  interior  self-relation- 
ship can  Divinity  have  the  completest  self-con- 
sciousness and  energy  ?  Surely,  the  reverent 
and  thoughtful  eye  must  see  some  such  meaning 
when  Jesus  Himself  makes  the  eternal  compan- 
ionship of  the  life  of  Deity  the  pattern  and  pic- 
ture of  the  best  society  of  the  souls  of  earth,  and 
breathes  out  to  His  Father  these  deep  and  won- 
drous words,  "  As  thou  Father  art  in  Me  and 
I  in  Thee,  that  they  all  may  be  one  in  Us." 

Let  us  pass  on  now  to  examine  in  more  detail 
the  social  life  of  Jesus  as  it  is  written  in  the  Gos- 


86  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

pels,  and  to  see,  if  we  can,  what  suggestions  come 
from  it  to  throw  light  upon  the  true  methods  of 
all  social  living.  It  naturally  divides  itself  into 
the  three  sections  into  which  all  our  relations  to 
our  fellow-men  fall ;  and  in  that  division  it  will 
be  natural  for  us  to  consider  it.  I  shall  speak 
first  of  the  natural  relationships  of  Jesus  with 
individuals ;  and  then  of  His  relation  to  the  group 
of  disciples  which  was  the  rudimentary  church  ; 
and  then  of  His  relation  to  His  country.  The 
purely  social,  the  ecclesiastical,  and  the  patriotic 
life  demand  our  study. 

Every  now  and  then  there  are  flashes  of 
light  upon  the  Gospel  page  which  let  us  see  what 
a  bright,  sunny,  sympathetic  life  the  Savior  lived, 
—  how  perfectly  free  from  harshness  and  asceti- 
cism was  that  character  which,  at  the  same  time, 
carried  a  sweet  and  gentle  seriousness  and  a 
robust  earnestness  with  it  wherever  it  went. 
"  The  son  of  man  came  eating  and  drinking,  and 
they  say,  a  gluttonous  man  and  a  wine-bibber,  a 
friend  of  publicans  and  sinners."  So  Jesus  Him- 
self described  one  day  the  current  impression 
that  His  life  made  upon  the  people  of  Jerusalem. 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  87 

The  words  are  like  an  instantaneous  photograph 
of  that  far  distant  time.  Where  one's  enemies 
find  chance  to  taunt,  one's  friends  almost  always 
find  occasion  to  be  puzzled.  In  those  words  we 
can  see  friends  and  enemies  alike  busied  with  the 
strange  life  of  Jesus,  and  only  gradually  finding 
out  that  it  was  they  who  were  strange,  and  not 
He,  —  gradually  coming  first  to  feel  and  then  to 
understand  that  this  life  of  His,  so  bright  and 
yet  so  serious,  so  individual  and  yet  so  social, 
had  reached  completely  what  their  lives  were 
only  crudely  struggling  after.  The  same  feeling 
broke  forth  upon  another  day.  Jesus  was  supping 
at  a  "  great  feast "  in  the  house  of  Levi,  —  no 
sumptuous  Venetian  banquet,  such  as  the  great 
master's  hand  has  painted,  but  a  half-barbaric 
scene  of  profuse  hospitality  which  merely  told  the 
host's  good-will,  —  and  the  Pharisees  looked  on 
and  said,  "  Why  do  the  disciples  of  John  fast, 
and  likewise  the  disciples  of  the  Pharisees,  but 
thine  eat  and  drink  ? "  They  hated  John  the 
Baptist,  but  they  understood  him.  They  found 
him  in  the  same  region  of  spiritual  endeavor  in 
which  they  livei  themselves.  They  recognized 


88  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

in  him  the  same  desire  to  realize  individual 
responsibility  and  the  seriousness  of  life  by  iso- 
lation, by  surrender,  by  cutting  off  everything 
which  by  completing  life  should  confuse  it.  Jesus 
had  pushed  on  where  they  could  not  follow  Him. 
He  had  gone  into  the  very  heart  of  the  society 
where  men  lose  their  individuality  to  find  His, 
and  into  the  very  centre  of  that  world  where 
seriousness  is  ordinarily  lost,  to  find  there  the 
true  solemnity  of  living. 

For  always  there  are  these  three  possible 
stages  in  every  advancing  moral  and  spiritual 
life.  There  is,  first,  safety  in  simplicity  ;  and, 
second,  the  loss  of  self  in  complication  ;  and  then, 
at  last,  the  higher  self-possession  in  a  sym- 
metrical and  harmonized  multiplicity.  They  are 
the  stages  which  are  represented  by  childhood 
and  young  manhood  and  middle  life,  in  every 
complete  career.  The  child,  with  his  simple, 
serene,  uncomplicated  thought  of  life,  seems 
master  of  himself ;  the  young  man,  tossed  like  a 
helpless  swimmer  in  the  midst  of  the  billowy 
world,  has  lost  himself;  the  man  of  middle  age, 
who  has  reached  the  profoundest  faiths  and  prin- 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  89 

ciples  of  living,  has  found  himself,  and  lives  in 
a  steady  self-possession  which  is  to  the  child's 
security  like  the  noonday  to  the  dawn.  Now 
the  Pharisees  were  children.  They  were  afraid 
of  life.  They  wanted  to  perpetuate  childhood 
by  keeping  it  out  of  the  power  of  life.  John 
Baptist's  disciples,  too,  were  children  ;  only  the 
difference  was  that  their  great  master  knew  that 
the  true  childhood  does  not  last,  but  turns  to 
something  greater.  He  sent  his  disciples  forth 
into  life,  —  the  life  of  exposure,  and  so  the  life 
of  true  attainment, — when  he  pointed  them  to 
Jesus  and  said,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God  which 
taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world,"  —  not  merely 
stifles  them  and  keeps  them  down,  but  "  taketh 
them  away." 

Nowhere  is  Jesus  satisfied  until  He  himself 
has  reached,  and  till  He  has  led  His  disciples 
on  towards,  this  third  region  of  completed  char- 
acter, and  made  them  possess  themselves,  not  in 
solitude,  where  character  would  be  so  much  easier 
and  so  much  more  imperfect,  but  in  contact  with 
the  world.  I  know  that  we  lose  much  of  the 
beauty  of  His  treatmer.t,  both  of  Himself  and 


9O  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

of  His  servants,  when  we  feel  about  in  its  clear 
depths  for  conscious  and  definite  intentions.  I 
know  that  He,  above  all  men,  did  what  He  did 
because  He  was  what  He  was,  —  from  a  deepei 
necessity  than  any  deliberate  persuasion  that 
His  disciples  needed  this  or  that  teaching  at  this 
or  that  special  time.  But  still,  as  we  formulate 
the  impulses  of  nature  into  the  laws  of  nature, 
and  find  reasons,  which  the  winds  and  suns  do 
not  care  themselves  to  know,  why  they  should 
blow  and  shine  just  as  we  feel  and  see  them, — 
reasons  true,  though  not  the  truest  or  the  deep- 
est, —  so  we  may  dare  to  say  about  the  acts  of 
Jesus,  "  He  must  have  done  this  act  for  this,"  if 
we  can  only  keep  the  deeper  knowledge  that  He 
did  every  act  just  as  He  did  it  because  He  was 
Jesus,  and  could  not  do  it  otherwise.  Using  such 
reverent  liberty,  I  think  we  may  love  to  study 
the  way  in  which  He  opened  every  social  event 
into  its  deeper  meaning,  so  that  the  men  who 
were  in  danger  of  losing  themselves  in  the  crowd 
might  really  find  themselves,  might  enter  into  a 
self-possess;  Dn  there  which  they  could  not  attain 
in  solitude.  Let  us  look  at  a  few. 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  91 

Jesus  went  one  day  to  a  marriage  feast  at  the 
little  town  of  Cana.  Why  did  He  go  ?  I  know 
no  reason  except  that  for  which  we  go  to  where 
our  friends  are  happy,  —  to  make  them  know 
that  we  are  glad  because  of  their  happiness. 
When  He  came  there,  the  rooms  were  full  of 
men  and  women,  all  vividly  conscious  that  they 
belonged  to  one  another.  Husbands  and  wives, 
brothers  and  sisters,  all  degrees  of  kinship,  all 
kinds  of  cousins,  all  feeling  their  common  blood 
upon  this  family  holiday.  To  Him,  the  grave, 
strong,  sweet-faced  man  who  stood  among  them, 
so  familiar  yet  so  strange,  they  were  His  Father's 
children.  They  had  forgotten  that.  They  were 
so  absorbed  in  t'heir  brotherhoods  that  they  had 
forgotten  their  Father.  The  miracle  which  Jesus 
did  was  like  the  opening  of  a  window  upward, 
so  that  that  truth  shone  down  upon  them.  They 
were  giving  one  another  bread  and  meat  in  token 
of  their  brotherhood.  Suddenly  Jesus  spoke  to 
the  water  in  the  jars,  and  there  was  wine  before 
them,  so  suddenly,  so  mysteriously,  so  apart  from 
any  ministry  which  they  were  doing  to  each 
other,  that  they  looked  into  one  another's  faces 


92  The  Influence  of  Jesus 


and  felt  divinity.  They  said,  "  Our  Father  must 
be  here.  We  are  not  only  brothers,  we  are 
children.  Let  us  remember  that."  And  each 
remembered  it  the  better  because  he  did  not 
drink  the  mysterious  wine  alone,  but  saw  his 
brethren  drinking  it  beside  him.  Each  found 
himself  the  child  of  God  more  easily  because  of 
the  fragment  of  the  universal  family  in  which 
the  wonder  and  awakening  came  to  him. 

Or  turn  again  to  one  of  the  scenes  of  which  I 
spoke  in  the  last  lecture.  Jesus  went  once  to 
supper  in  a  ruler's  house.  Again  the  conscious- 
ness of  brotherhood  lay  like  a  rich  atmosphere 
through  the  great,  softly  lighted  hall.  While 
they  are  eating,  behold  a  poor  creature  comes 
creeping  in,  and  casts  herself  at  the  feet  of  the 
honored  Guest,  and  begins  (what  other  words  can 
describe  it  except  those  dear  words  of  the  story  ?) 
to  "wash  His  feet  with  her  tears,  and  did  wipe 
them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head,  and  kissed  His 
feet  and  anointed  them  with  the  ointment."  Jesus 
looked  up,  and  with  clear,  brave,  simple  words 
told  the  perplexed  company  that  she  was  one 
of  them,  able  to  love,  able  to  trust,  able  to  be 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  93 

forgiven.  What  then?  All  these  are  privileges 
and  powers  of  childhood  knowing  a  fatherhood 
above  it.  The  guests  listened  ;  and  as  when  a 
group  of  men,  —  all  prosperous,  all  respectable, 
brothers  to  one  another,  —  talking  together,  see 
suddenly  among  them  one,  their  brother  too, 
but  poor,  sick,  wretched,  pitiable,  and  then  their 
thoughts  turn  back  to  the  house  where  they  all 
were  children,  and  the  father  who  was  father 
to  them  all;  as  the  very  sight  of  inequality 
compels  the  simple  sense  of  brotherhood  to 
complete  itself  with  the  memory  of  fatherhood  ; 
so,  when  Jesus  lifted  this  poor  creature  up  and 
said,  as  He  looked  round  upon  the  upright, 
reputable  men,  "This  is  your  sister,"  the  brother- 
hood that  filled  the  hall  warmed  with  the  deeper 
memory  of  fatherhood,  and  the  guests  found 
their  childhood  to  God  in  the  strange  society  of 
the  noblest  of  His  sons  and  the  most  degraded 
of  His  daughters. 

There  was  one  house  where  Jesus  went  very 
often, —  the  cottage  of  Mary  and  Martha  and 
Lazarus  at  Bethany.  There  He  lived  not  merely 
a  social  but  a  domestic  life,  —  not  merely  a  life 


94  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

of  society,  but  a  life  of  home.  In  that  house, 
brotherhood  and  sisterhood  bloomed  into  such 
perfect  flower  that  it  has  been  fragrant  and 
beautiful  to  all  the  generations.  They  were 
religious  people.  No  doubt  each  of  them  in  soli- 
tude strove  after  and  found  the  fatherhood  of 
God.  But  we  can  well  imagine  that  when  they 
were  together  it  was  their  brotherhood  and  sis- 
terhood that  was  most  prominent.  And  what 
did  Jesus  do  for  them  ?  Silver  and  gold,  like 
His  disciple,  He  had  none ;  but  such  as  He 
had,  His  own  supreme  consciousness,  such  as  He 
was,  He  gave  to  them.  One  day  He  told  the 
anxious  elder  sister  that  there  was  a  "better 
part "  in  life  than  the  most  faithful  work  for  the 
comfort  of  brother  and  of  sister.  He  taught  her 
His  own  lesson,  that  man  doth  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of 
the  mouth  of  God  his  Father.  On  another  sol- 
emn day  He  allowed  the  household  life  to  feel 
the  shock  of  death  and  to  be  broken,  in  order 
that  He  might  call  upon  His  Father  and  their 
Father  to  restore  it  by  what  was  like  to  a  new 
birth.  And  as  the  coming  of  a  child  into  a 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  95 

household  breaks  open  its  narrowness  to  let  in 
the  broad  thought  of  God,  so  the  brotherhood 
and  sisterhood  of  Bethany  must  have  been  deep- 
ened and  filled  with  the  consciousness  of  sonship 
and  daughtership,  whenever  that  boy-man  — 
young  forever  with  something  of  the  perpetual 
youth  of  those  who  have  passed  through  the 
grave  and  come  out  in  the  timeless  life  beyond 
—  went  about  among  them. 

I  turn  to  one  scene  more.  Jesus  was  teaching 
one  day  in  the  Temple,  doing  His  Father's  busi- 
ness, and  some  one  told  Him  that  far  off,  on  the 
outside  of  the  crowd,  His  mother  and  His  broth- 
ers were  waiting  to  talk  with  Him.  He  paused 
perhaps  a  moment,  as  if  pondering  whether  He 
should  leave  His  work,  and  then,  just,  it  seems 
to  me,  as  if  He  stooped  down  and  took  hold  of 
the  human  relationship  which  had  been  offered 
Him,  and  turned  it  over  to  show  men  its  diviner 
side,  He  looked  around  and  said,  "  Who  are  My 
mother  and  My  brethren  ? "  And  then,  stretch- 
ing out  His  hand  to  His  disciples,  "These  are 
My  mother  and  My  brethren."  It  was  as  if  He 
said,  "  Motherhood  and  brotherhood  are  true  and 


g6  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

real  only  within  the  fatherhood  of  God.  When- 
ever that  common  fatherhood  is  real,  there  is  a 
true  relationship  to  which  the  tender  associations 
of  earthly  kinship  are  in  themselves  inferior. 
The  earthly  kinships  are  the  symbol  of  this 
celestial  reality.  The  beauty  of  the  household  is 
in  the  reality,  not  in  the  symbol.  The  symbol 
and  the  reality  belong  together.  My  brothers 
and  My  mother  after  the  flesh  do  represent  to 
Me,  as  no  other  beings  can,  the  dear  fatherhood 
of  God,  the  relations  of  eternity.  But  sometimes 
the  symbol  must  wait,  lest  it  hinder  instead  of 
helping  the  reality."  Therefore,  Mary  waited 
while  Jesus  went  on  and  preached  to  those 
whom  He  claimed  as  "  brother  and  sister  and 
mother,"  because  they  were  doing  the  will  of 
His  Father  which  was  in  heaven. 

All  these  are  illustrations.  In  every  one  of 
them,  I  take  it,  the  meaning  is  the  same.  Jesus 
begins  with  the  individual.  He  always  does. 
His  first  and  deepest  touches  are  upon  the  single 
soul.  Before  all  social  life  there  is  the  personal 
consciousness  and  its  mysterious  private  rela- 
tions to  the  Father  from  whom  it  came.  The 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  97 

father  cannot  teach  his  boy  so  early  that  God 
shall  not  have  taught  him  first.  The  mother 
cannot  drop  such  soft,  unconscious  influence 
into  her  child's  soul  that  it  shall  not  find  the  soul 
itself  already  full  of  the  influence  of  God.  In  the 
individual  experience  man's  life  always  begins. 
But  there  are  some  things  of  the  individual  life 
which  the  individual  cannot  get  save  in  the  com- 
pany of  fellow-men.  There  are  some  parts  of 
his  own  true  life  always  in  his  brethren's  keeping, 
for  which  he  must  go  to  them.  That  the  indi- 
vidual may  find  and  be  his  own  truest  and  fullest 
self,  Jesus,  his  Master,  leads  him  to  his  fellows. 
The  wedding  guest  at  Cana,  the  Pharisee  at 
Levi's  table,  the  sisters  with  their  restored 
brother,  the  brothers  of  the  Lord  in  the  house 
of  the  carpenter, — all,  just  as  soon  as  Jesus 
sanctified  and  blessed  the  society  in  which  they 
lived,  saw  coming  to  them  as  it  were  out  of  the 
heart  of  that  society  a  selfhood  which  no  solitary 
contemplation  could  have  gained.  Each  of  them 
found  his  Father  among  his  brethren,  —  reached 
God  through  the  revelation  of  other  human 
lives. 

7 


98  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

This  is  the  fundamental  truth  out  of  which 
comes  the  regulative  law  of  Jesus  about  social 
life.  Society  does  not  exist  for  itself,  but  for  the 
individual ;  and  man  goes  into  it  not  to  lose,  but 
to  find  himself.  The  ancient  society,  the  heathen 
society  of  to-day,  whether  in  some  savage  island 
or  in  some  fashionable  parlor,  is  ready  always  to 
sacrifice  the  personal  nature,  the  individual  soul. 
As  if  society  itself  were  an  object  worthy  of  per- 
fecting for  its  own  value,  it  overwhelms  individ- 
ual character  and  pitilessly  sees  lives  lost  in  its 
great  whirlpool.  I  think  the  great  charge  that 
Jesus,  if  He  spoke  to-day,  would  bring  against  our 
modern  social  life,  our  present  society,  as  it  in 
large  part  exists,  would  be  this.  He  would  see 
its  impurity  ;  He  would  recognize  the  falseness 
that  pervades  it  ;  He  would  turn  away  from  its 
sordidness  with  disappointment ;  but,  most  of 
all,  He  would  miss  in  it  that  power  to  cultivate  the 
personal  life  of  the  individual  by  the  revelation  of 
the  divine  side  of  human  existence  which  is  every- 
where His  ideal  of  social  living.  It  is  not  always 
so.  There  are  small  groups  of  men  gathered  on 
such  high  ground  that  each  of  them  becomes 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  99 

aware  of  himself,  of  his  capacities  and  duties,  in 
the  association  with  his  brethren.  Especially 
there  are  friendships,  the  sympathetic  meeting  of 
man  and  man,  in  which  each  knows  himself  as  he 
could  not  in  solitude.  But  our  ordinary  life  with 
one  another,  what,  in  the  language  of  the  world, 
we  call  society,  has  so  left  and  lost  the  spontane- 
ousness  of  natural  impulse  and  so  failed  to  attain 
the  highest  conception  of  itself  as  the  family  of 
God,  it  so  hangs  fast  in  the  dull  middle  regions 
of  conventional  propriety  and  selfish  expediency, 
that  it  becomes  not  the  fountain,  but  the  grave,  of 
individuality.  Men  go  to  it  to  escape  themselves. 
Men  dread  it,  as  they  grow  older,  for  younger 
men,  because  its  influences  seem  to  be  fatal  to 
original  and  positive  character.  Men  flee  to  soli- 
tude to  recruit  their  personality.  Nowhere  do 
we  find  on  earth  that  picture  of  society  recon- 
structed by  the  idea  of  Jesus,  society  around  the 
thrcne  of  God,  which  shines  out  upon  us  from 
the  mysterious  promises  of  the  Apocalypse  ;  the 
glory  of  which  society  is  to  be  this,  —  that  while 
the  souls  stand  in  their  vast  choruses  of  hundreds 
of  thousands,  and  all  chant  the  same  anthems 


ioo  The  Influence  of 


and  all  work  together  in  the  same  transcendent 
duties,  yet  each  bears  the  sacred  name  written 
on  the  flesh  of  his  own  forehead,  and  carries  in 
his  hand  a  white  stone,  on  which  is  written  a  new 
name  which  no  man  knoweth  saving  he  that 
receiveth  it.  It  is  individuality  emphasized  by 
company,  and  not  lost  in  it,  because  the  atmos- 
phere in  which  the  company  is  met  is  the  idea  of 
Jesus,  which  is  the  fatherhood  of  God. 

And  here  we  come  where  we  can  understand 
some  other  things  which  the  great  Teacher 
said,  which,  if  they  stood  alone,  would  puzzle  us 
hopelessly.  Here  He  is,  in  His  mountain  sermon, 
telling  of.  what  is  to  be  the  issue  of  His  work.  It 
is  almost  as  if  He  spoke  in  reverie.  He  hardly 
seems  to  be  speaking  to  the  people,  or  to  be  con- 
scious of  them.  He  seems  to  be  reading  for  the 
first  time  a  page  of  the  future  which  has  never 
opened  to  Him  before  ;  or  to  be  rereading  one 
which,  however  often  He  may  read  it,  is  forever 
new  and  wonderful.  "  Think  not  that  I  am  come 
to  send  peace  on  the  earth,"  He  says  ;  "I  can.e 
not  to  send  peace,  but  a  sword.  For  I  am  come  to 
set  a  man  at  variance  against  his  father,  and  the 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  101 

daughter  against  her  mother,  and  the  daughter- 
in-law  against  her  mother-in-law :  and  a.  .nan's 
foes  shall  be  they  of  his  own  household."  And 
at  another  time,  when  He  looked  around,  and  saw 
a  superficial  multitude  following  Him,  He  seemed 
seized  with  that  desire  which  many  a  true  man 
has  felt,  to  test  and  sift  the  allegiance  that 
seemed  to  be  gathering  only  too  easily.  He 
paused  and  turned,  and  stopped  the  crowd  that 
was  pursuing  Him,  and  He  cried  out  across  their 
heads,  so  that  the  farthest  heard  Him,  "  If  any  man 
come  to  Me  and  hate  not  his  father  and  mother 
and  wife  and  children  and  brethren  and  sisters, 
he  cannot  be  My  disciple."  There  is  almost 
defiance  in  the  words.  But  they  seem  to  me  to 
be  like  so  many  words  of  Jesus  which  we  cannot 
understand  if  we  think  of  Him  only  as  a  teacher, 
only  as  a  giver  of  lessons  to  men  whom  He 
counted  His  pupils.  We  must  think  of  Jesus  as 
a  soul,  undergoing  experiences,  living  a  life  all 
through  those  years,  or  else  the  Gospels  are  a 
very  dead  and  barren  book.  And  if  we  have 
known  what  it  is  to  look  forward  and  see,  with 
terror  which  yet  is  glorified  by  hope,  that  the 


IO2  The  Influence  of  jfesus 

great  purpose  on  which  our  heart  is  set  is  to  be 
won  only  by  first  casting  it,  with  seeming  reck- 
lessness, away, —  if,  for  instance,  we  have  seen  that 
we  must  lay  the  foundations  of  a  boy's  true  faith 
upon  the  very  ruins  of  what  he  has  been  calling 
his  creed  ;  if  the  reformer,  full  of  the  visions 
of  a  bright,  free,  happy  land,  knows  often 
that  he  must  take  the  firebrand  and  set  the  land 
on  fire  before  he  can  begin  his  work ;  if  every 
one  of  us  has  had  to  disturb  the  unreal  quiet  of 
what  called  itself  a  friendship  in  order  that  we 
might  be  deeply  and  truly  a  friend  to  some  heart 
which  he  coveted, —  if  all  these  are  familiar  things, 
then  we  can  understand  how  the  Rebuilder  of 
human  life  about  the  fatherhood  of  God  dwelt 
with  pathetic  certainty  upon  the  destruction  that 
must  come  before  that  construction  could  begin. 
The  more  intensely  He  knew  the  preciousness  of 
the  end,  the  more  necessary  and  the  more  terrible 
became  the  seeming  sacrifice  of  that  end  over  which 
He  must  go  to  reach  it.  The  more  He  gloried, 
with  His  heart  full  of  the  memories  of  heaven,  in 
the  prospect  of  the  re-established  family  of  God, 
where  each  child  should  find  his  own  distinctive 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  103 

childhood  in  the  common  filial  life  of  all,  so  much 
the  more  He  saw  with  sadness,  but  with  certainty, 
that  the  merely  human  groupings  of  men,  in 
which  each  man  lost  his  own  true  self  among  his 
brethren,  must  be  broken  up.  The  more  He 
longed  to  see  the  Temple  full  of  consecrated  wor- 
shippers, the  more  ruthlessly  He  drove  out  the 
barterers  and  hucksters  who  had  monopolized  its 
courts. 

The  key,  then,  to  all  Christ's  treatment  of 
man's  social  life  lies  here,  —  in  the  constant  de- 
sire to  foster  the  consciousness  of  divine  sonship 
by  intercourse  with  those  who  are  fellow-sons  of 
the  same  Father.  And  here  we  see  what  is 
meant  by  the  constant  alternation,  the  effort  after 
balance,  as  it  were,  between  society  and  solitude, 
first  in  the  life  of  Jesus  himself,  and  then  in  the  life 
which  He  enjoined  on  His  disciples.  Think  over 
some  of  the  purely  solitary  moments  which  Jesus 
passed.  No  sooner  was  His  work  fairly  begun,  no 
sooner  was  He  completely  consecrated  to  it,  than 
the  Spirit,  His  Spirit,  took  Him  away  from  the 
company  of  His  home,  and  the  solitude  of  the 
Temptation  followed.  The  need  of  realizing 


IO4  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

Himself  had  come.  He  must  struggle  into  the 
knowledge  of  what  it  meant  to  be  in  the  world. 
He  must  meet  the  devil  of  doubt  and  of  despair. 
It  is  a  most  mysterious  event,  but  its  mystery  is 
of  that  sort  which  becomes  more  and  more  myste- 
rious to  us,  not  because  it  is  so  unlike,  but  because  it 
is  so  like,  what  goes  on  in  our  own  careers.  That 
is  always  the  most  wonderful  sort  of  mystery. 
Jesus,  there  in  the  desert,  shakes  His  life  free,  as 
it  were,  from  the  shell  of  childhood,  and  thereby, 
for  the  first  time,  takes  possession  of  the  perfectly 
childlike  soul  He  is  a  man,  and  the  secret  which 
manhood  whispers  into  His  ear  in  that  moment  of 
initiation,  —  a  secret  not  new  and  yet  forever 
new,  because  it  is  infinite, —  is  simply  that  God  is 
His  Father.  Care,  obedience,  trust,  the  holding 
back  of  the  life  until  the  Father  bids  it  go,  the 
sending  forth  of  the  life  wherever  the  Father  de- 
mands it,  —  these,  which  are  the  elements  of  con- 
scious childhood,  Jesus  took  up  there  in  the  desert. 
That  totality  of  life,  that  unity  of  it  in  a  single  con- 
ception and  a  single  use,  which  often  afterwards 
cameso  grandly  from  His  lips, — it  must  have  been 
there  in  the  desert  that  He  came  to  know  it  first. 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  105 

All  that  was  done  in  solitude.  And  then,  when  the 
idea  is  there,  when  the  core  and.  centre  of  life  has 
been  set,  He  comes  down,  and  instantly  Redraws 
near  to  men  and  draws  men  to  Him.  About  that 
core,  both  for  its  own  satisfaction  and  safety  and 
for  the  blessing  of  the  lives  He  summons,  He  must 
group  the  souls  into  a  society.  He  sees  Simon 
Peter  and  Andrew,  and  they  are  no  sooner  with 
Him  than  James  and  John  are  beckoned  with  a 
bright  gesture  or  challenged  with  a  ringing  word 
from  their  half-mended  nets  ;  and  then,  with 
them  around  Him,  He  plunges  into  populous  Gali- 
lee, and  all  its  villages  begin  to  know  His  face  and 
watch  for  His  coming,  and  make  their  contribution 
to  His  company.  Solitude  makes  the  conscious- 
ness ;  society  develops,  multiplies,  and  confirms 
it.  That  which  would  have  remained  only  a 
quality  in  Him,  if  He  had  stayed  in  the  desert, 
becomes  a  life  when  He  goes  forth  into  the  world. 
What  Goethe  wisely  says  of  all  men  does  not 
lose  its  truth  when  we  are  thinking  of  the  Son  of 
Man :  "  A  talent  shapes  itself  in  stillness,  but  a 
character  in  the  tumult  of  the  world."  This  is 
Christ's  balance  between  solitude  and  society. 


106  The  Influence  of 


Each  makes  the  other  necessary.  With  us  they 
often  lose  this  value,  because  they  are  not  set  in 
any  relation  to  each  other.  Solitude  is  barren, 
and  so  society  is  frivolous.  Solitude  creates  no  con- 
sciousness for  society  to  ripen.  Solitude  is  like  an 
unfertile  seed,  and  society  is  like  an  unplanted 
ground.  Each  craves  the  other,  not  because  it 
wants  its  complement,  but  because  it  is  tired  of 
itself  and  longs  to  change. 

I  think  there  is  something  exquisitely  beauti- 
liil  in  the  unerring  play  of  this  balance  in  the  life 
of  Jesus.  Not  more  surely  does  the  night  open 
into  day  than  solitude  fulfils  itself  with  company. 
Once  and  again  He  goes  apart  into  a  mountain 
and  prays  by  Himself  all  night.  No  one  is  there  but 
Him  and  God.  The  silence  is  like  heaven  about 
Him.  But  as  the  morning  comes  a  new  need  cer- 
tainly comes  with  it.  No  longer  loneliness,  but 
company  ;  not  solitude,  but  voices  ;  and  so  the 
earliest  light  finds  Him  among  the  crowd  of  His 
disciples  choosing  His  twelve  apostles,  or  walking 
across  the  boisterous  waters  of  Gcnnesaret  to 
join  His  toiling  servants  in  their  boat.  Every- 
body must  have  felt  how  the  two  needs  trera- 


On  the  Social-  Life  of  Man.  107 


ble  in  response  to  one  another  in  the  intense 
atmosphere  of  that  vivid  night  before  His  cru- 
cifixion. It  seems  as  if  He  took  great  deep 
draughts  of  the  idea  of  His  life,  of  the  father- 
hood of  His  Father,  as  if  it  entered  by  great 
waves  into  His  soul,  and  as  if  each  wave  so 
overwhelmed  the  soul  it  filled  that  He  needed 
to  reassure  and  recover  Himself  in  the  familiar 
company  of  His  disciples.  First  there  is  the  long 
conversation  of  the  Supper.  Then  comes  the 
terrible  solitude  of  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane. 
Again  and  again  the  Sufferer  comes  wandering 
back  to  where  the  tired  and  unconscious  men 
are  lying.  It  is  as  one  who  was  passing  through 
some  deep  experience  might  go  into  the  chamber 
where  a  child  was  sleeping  and  find  relief  when 
the  burden  of  the  solitary  crisis  was  too  great  to 
bear.  Then,  as  the  Lord's  career  sweeps  more 
and  more  into  that  channel  where  it  must  run 
alone,  where  none  can  share  it,  how,  still,  the 
craving  for  society  seems  to  beat  responsive  to 
every  new  throb  of  suffering !  He  turns  and 
looks  at  Peter ;  He  would  almost  open  his  heart 
to  Pilate  ;  He  looks  back  and  tells  the  women 


io8  The  Influence  of  Jesus 


who  follow  him  to  Calvary  about  the  future  of 
the  beloved  land  that  murdered  Him;  and  at 
last,  even  upon  the  cross,  He  has  mercy  to  give 
to  the  robber  at  His  side,  and  c?re  still  for 
His  mother  and  the  disciple  whom  He  loved. 
Every  moment  of  deepening  communion  with 
His  Father  has  its  corresponding  moment  of 
sympathy  with  His  brother  men.  The  two  halves 
of  the  great  heart  die  together  as  they  have  lived 
together.  The  balance  trembles  more  and  more 
lightly  as  the  life  beats  lower,  but  it  trembles 
still  even  to  the  last,  and  Jesus  ceases  to  love 
only  when  He  ceases  to  live. 

And  this  same  poise  and  mutual  supply  which 
was  between  society  and  solitude  in  the  life  of 
Jesus  Himself  He  was  always  trying  to  establish 
in  the  lives  of  those  whom  He  taught.  One  day 
He  cured  a  man  of  lunacy.  It  was  a  deep  mys- 
tery to  the  poor  creature.  He  wanted  to  go 
with  Jesus,  to  leave  his  house  and  friends  and 
country,  to  hide  his  life  under  the  shelter  of  this 
power  of  God,  and  to  study  it  forever.  Jesus 
quietly  lays  the  finger  of  His  authority  upon  the 
other  scale  and  says,  "  Go  h  2ie  to  thy  friends." 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man,  109 

Another  day  He  raises  a  dead  girl  to  life,  and, 
just  as  the  glad  father  and  mother  and  all  the 
eager  friends  are  rushing  forth  into  the  street  to 
tell  their  joy  and  wonder,  He  lifts  his  finger  and 
says,  "  See  that  no  man  knows  it ! "  And  so 
it  is  always  with  the  separate  scholars  of  His 
school.  Peter  wants  to  stay  upon  the  mountain 
of  transfiguration,  and  his  Master  leads  him 
down  among  the  needs  of  men,  to  where  the 
poor  boy  with  the  unclean  spirit  is  foaming  and 
raving  at  the  mountain's  foot.  Nicodemus  sits 
with  Him  in  the  midnight  chamber.  The  next 
time  we  see  him  he  is  saying  a  timid  word  for 
the  Lord  in  the  Sanhedrim.  The  woman  of 
Sychar  fulfils  the  quiet  conversation  at  the 
well  by  the  impetuous  seeking  of  the  men  whom 
she  knew  in  the  city,  that  they  might  be  the 
sharers  of  her  joy.  Everywhere  the  solitary 
completes  itself  in  the  social.  Solitude  shapes 
and  colors  the  precious  forms  of  character  which 
then  the  furnace  of  society  burns  to  solidity 
and  brilliancy  and  permanence. 

I  am  often  struck  by  seeing  how  the  loftiness 
of  the  life  of  Jesus  altogether  escaped  the  per- 


I IO  The  Influence  of  Jesus* 

plexity  of  many  of  the  questions  with  which  our 
lives  are  troubled,  as  the  eagle  flying  through 
the  sky  is  not  worried  how  to  cross  the  rivers. 
We  debate  whether  self-culture  or  our  brethren's 
service  is  the  true  purpose  of  our  life.  We  vacil- 
late aimlessly.  Now  we  shut  ourselves  up  and 
meditate  and  try  to  grow.  Now  we  rush  forth 
and  make  the  wide  world  ring  with  what  we 
call  our  work.  The  two  so  often  have  no  con- 
nection with  each  other.  We  are  so  apt  to  live 
two  lives.  But  Jesus  knows  but  one.  All  cul- 
ture of  His  soul  is  part  of  our  salvation.  All 
doing  of  His  work  is  ripening  His  nature.  Jesus 
in  the  still  night  far  off  upon  a  solitary  hill-top, 
Jesus  in  broad  daylight  dragged  by  a  hooting 
mob  from  Pilate's  judgment-seat  to  Calvary,  both 
of  them  are  Jesus  saving  the  world  ;  both  of 
them  are  Jesus  living  His  life.  And  not  until 
our  brawling  ceases  and  the  champion  of  each 
side  of  the  question  rounds  his  truth  witli  his 
adversary's  truth  which  he  has  been  denouncing, 
not  until  the  apostle  of  self-culture  knows  that 
no  man  can  come  to  his  best  by  selfishness,  and 
the  apostle  of  usefulness  knows  that  no  man  can 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  1 1 1 

do  much  for  other  men  who  is  not  much  him- 
self, —  not  until  then  shall  men  have  fairly  started 
on  the  broad  road  to  the  completeness  of  God 
their  Father  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Son  of  Man. 
It  remains  only  to  speak  of  one  or  two  of  the 
special  exhibitions  of  the  social  life  of  Jesus  in 
illustration  of  what  I  have  been  saying.  One 
of  the  most  interesting  is  His  treatment  of  men 
in  classes.  It  is  always  saved  from  the  extrava- 
gance and  grotesqueness  into  which  the  empha- 
sis of  class  lines  tends  to  run  by  the  strong  value 
of  the  individual  life  which  lay  at  the  bottom  of 
His  consciousness.  Indeed,  I  think  that  as  one 
reads  that  interesting  story  of  how  the  various 
groups  of  men  came  up  to  John  the  Baptist  and 
received  his  teaching  about  their  special  duties, 
first  "  the  people,"  then  "  the  publicans,"  and 
then  "the  soldiers,"  one  feels  how  different 
that  is  from  anything  in  the  life  of  Jesus.  He 
deals,  indeed,  with  the  great  classes  into  which 
men  were  divided  in  His  time.  He  was  known 
as  the  friend  of  publicans.  He  cried  aloud  be- 
fore the  multitude,  "  Woe  unto  you,  Scribes  and 
Pharisees,"  but  He  was  no  partisan  of  wealth  noi 


112  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

any  more  of  poverty ;  whoever  listened  to  Him 
could  not  help  feeling  that  in  His  view  the  class 
was  good  or  bad  only  as  it  made  the  individual 
good  or  bad,  and  that  no  class  condition  could 
overrule  the  essential  condition  of  the  personal 
souls  within  it.  Here  is  where  all  party  spirit 
shows  its  viciousness.  Here  is  where  all  social- 
ism shows  its  weakness.  Here  is  where  all  the 
weak  idolatry  of  organic  methods  fails.  It  loses 
sight  of  the  final  unit  in  its  watch  over  some 
of  the  accidental  and  temporary  combinations  of 
mankind.  The  final  unit  is  the  man.  And  that 
unit  of  value  was  never  out  of  the  soul  of  Jesus. 
After  the  day  when  He  told  them  the  story 
which  they  never  could  forget,  of  how  there  was 
a  man  with  a  hundred  sheep  and  how  one  of 
them  xvandered  from  the  flock  and  got  astray 
among  the  hills,  and  of  how  the  shepherd  left  all 
the  rest  and  went  and  found  that  one  and  came 
down  out  of  the  hills  si-nging,  with  the  rescued 
sheep  across  his  shoulders,  —  after  that  keynote 
of  the  preciousness  of  the  individual  had  been 
struck,  it  never  ceased  to  be  heard  through 
everything  that  Jesus  said  and  did.  When  He 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  113 

sat  at  rich  men's  tables  His  proud  hosts  knew 
that  it  was  not  because  they  were  rich  but  be- 
cause they  were  men  that  He  had  come  to  them. 
When  He  entered  poor  men's  huts  they  knew  that 
it  was  not  their  poverty  but  their  manhood  that 
He  honored.  And  that  which,  on  the  whole,  has 
kept  Christianity  from  becoming  the  religion  of 
any  class  as  against  other  classes,  that  which 
has  always  made  it  able,  just  when  it  seemed 
on  the  point  of  lending  itself  to  such  monopoly, 
to  break  out  of  the  grasp  of  those  who  would  put 
it  to  such  partisan  and  partial  use,  has  been  the 
healthy  and  ineradicable  individualism  which  is 
at  its  heart.  Men  cry  to-day,  "  Christianity  is  the 
religion  of  the  rich  and  comfortable,"  and  while 
they  speak  their  cry  is  drowned  in  the  rush  of 
the  poor,  the  hungry,  and  the  wretched  to  some 
common  men's  revival.  They  cry  again,  "  The 
Christian  belief  belongs  to  the  ignorant,"  and  lo, 
the  wisest  thought  of  the  world  comes  back 
again  as  it  is  ever  coming  to  the  mystery  of 
Christ  and  of  His  treatment  of  the  soul  of  man. 
It  is  not  that  they  have  mistaken  the  class  to 

which  they   should  assign    the   Christian   faith. 
8 


H4  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

Their  mistake  has  been  in  giving  it  to  any  class. 
It  belongs  to  the  individual.  It  always  has  its 
eye  fastened  on  him.  One  of  the  noblest  func- 
tions of  Christianity  in  the  world  is  to  lie  be- 
hind the  class  crystallizations  of  mankind,  like  a 
solvent  into  which  they  shall  return  and  blend 
with  one  another,  to  crystallize,  no  doubt,  again, 
but  always  to  be  reminded  that  the  classes  into 
which  they  crystallize  are  lesser  facts  than  the 
manhood  into  which  they  are  repeatedly  dis- 
solved. 

We  must  put  here,  no  doubt,  the  deep  interest 
with  which  Jesus  looked  always  at  the  young. 
He  was  talking  of  deep  and  difficult  things,  and 
through  the  crowd  there  came  a  little  company 
of  women  bringing  their  children  for  Him  to 
bless.  Instantly  He  turned  aside  from  the  grown 
men  and  women,  and,  waving  His  disciples'  inter- 
ference back,  His  hands  were  on  the  little  won- 
dering creatures'  heads.  And  when  a  young 
man  came  with  a  puzzled  question,  the  teller  of 
the  story  years  afterwards  remembered  the  look 
which  was  in  the  eyes  of  Jesus  as  He  answered 
him.  "  Jesus  beholding  him  loved  him,11  Mark 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  115 

writes.  In  both  these  stories,  and  perhaps  still 
more  in  the  way  in  which  He  surrounded  Him- 
self with  that  garland  of  vigor  and  enthusiasm, 
the  cluster  of  young  men  whom  He  called  His 
disciples,  everywhere  there  is  the  value  set  on 
youth.  And  youth  is  the  period  of  individual 
life,  of  individual  hope.  Class  life  has  not  be- 
gun. The  child  of  the  king  and  the  child  of 
the  beggar  will  play  together  if  no  older  wisdom 
or  folly  interferes.  Nay,  the  queen  who  will  not 
let  the  beggar's  fingers  touch  her  robe  will  take 
the  beggar's  baby  in  her  arms  and  clasp  it  to 
her  bosom.  He  who  touches  a  child  of  any  class 
touches,  as  it  were,  the  undivided  humanity,  and 
his  touch  may  be  felt  anywhere  through  all  its 
classifications.  He  who  speaks  to  the  infant 
speaks  to  mankind  behind  the  Babel  of  its  di- 
visions. No  wonder  that  Socrates  was  accused 
at  Athens  that  he  corrupted  the  youth.  No 
wonder  that  Jesus  said  of  little  children,  "  Of 
such  is  the  kingdom  of  Heaven." 

Another  interesting  point  in  the  social  life  of 
Jesus  is  His  courtesy.  There  is  perhaps,  no 
part  of  our  life  that  is  so  unre?1  and  unsatisfac 


u  6  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

tory,  none  of  which  we  find  it  so  hard  to  give 
an  account  to  ourselves,  as  the  courtesy  which 
we  pay  to  one  another.  And  there  is  none 
which,  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  is  more  thoroughly 
satisfactory  and  perfect.  I  find  the  secret  of  it 
in  the  clear  perception  and  value  of  the  per- 
sonal life  behind  the  class  condition  of  which  we 
have  just  been  speaking.  True  courtesy  gets  its 
essence  from  honor  of  the  individual,  while  it 
gets  its  special  form  from  consideration  of  the 
class  condition.  I  may  be  just  as  courteous  to  the 
beggar  as  to  the  king,  but  I  do  not  treat  them 
both  alike.  Now,  when  Jesus  met  the  woman 
of  Samaria  at  the  well  He  honored  her ;  He  val- 
ued and  reverenced  her  soul.  When  He  met 
Pontius  Pilate,  He  honored  him.  When  He 
dealt  day  after  day  with  the  ripening  treachery 
of  Judas  Iscariot,  He  honored  him.  When  He 
found  John  the  Baptist  making  the  door  ready 
through  which  He  was  to  enter  on  His  work, 
He  honored  him.  The  spiritual  nature,  the 
special  humanity,  of  each  of  them  seemed  to 
Him,  not  in  any  mere  fiction  but  in  simple  truth, 
to  be  a  beautiful  and  precious  thing.  His  honor 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  117 

for  that  was  the  soul  of  His  courteousness.  And 
then  the  special  words  He  said,  whether  of  sym- 
pathy or  of  rebuke,  might  be  just  what  the  spe- 
cial occasion  bade  them  be.  Different  as  the} 
were,  they  were  all  courteous  alike  because  of 
this  personal  honor  and  value  that  filled  them 
all.  There  is  no  complete  courtesy  that  has  not 
such  a  soul  and  such  a  body,  —  a  soul  of  honor 
for  the  individual,  living  in  and  uttering  itself 
through  the  intelligent  recognition  of  the  class 
condition. 

Or,  look  at  the  way  in  which  this  principle 
governs  all  the  treatment  by  Jesus  of  the  hard 
question  of  privilege.  Privilege,  which  is  a  per- 
vading, obstinate  fact  in  the  world,  becomes  an 
exasperating  fact  from  the  crude  confusion  of 
personal  nature  with  official  life  or  accidental 
circumstances.  Let  the  two  be  finely  and  con- 
stantly discriminated,  and  privilege  loses  the 
largest  part  of  its  obnoxiousness,  —  loses  all  its 
obnoxiousness  for  the  best  and  noblest  men. 
Perhaps  this  discrimination  was  never  more  finely 
or  clearly  made  than  on  that  day  when,  after  one 
of  the  discussions  with  the  rulers  of  the  people. 


1 1 8  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

in  which  they  had  tried  to  browbeat  Him  with 
the  authority  of  their  position,  Jesus  quietly 
turned  to  the  multitude  and  His  disciples  and 
said  to  them,  "  The  Scribes  and  the  Pharisees  sit 
in  Moses'  seat.  All  therefore  whatsoever  they 
bid  you  observe,  that  observe  and  do,  but  do  not 
ye  after  their  works."  I  can  easily  conceive  of 
how  the  scales  may  have  dropped  from  the  eyes 
of  some  ingenuous  Jew  as  he  listened  to  those 
words.  Behold,  it  was  possible  to  own  and 
recognize  these  men's  position,  and  yet  not  be 
obliged  to  call  them  good  when  they  were  bad,  or 
great  when  they  were  little.  Behold,  one  might 
keep  his  own  intellect  and  conscience  true,  and 
yet  not  seize  the  sword  to  destroy  all  present 
social  order.  Behold,  one  might  obey  present 
authority,  and  yet  be  expectant  of  the  coming 
day  when  only  the  best  should  rule.  To  the 
listener  who  heard  all  that  in  the  words  of  Jesus, 
the  privilege  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  was 
no  longer  an  exasperation.  His  hate  and  envy 
of  them  turned  to  pity.  There  might  be  other 
men  not  morally  within  the  sound  of  the  Lord's 
voice,  who  would  still  be  jealous  of  the  soft  cush- 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  1:9 

ions  and  the  pompous  words  of  the  men  who  sat 
in  Moses's  seat ;  but  they  were  only  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  out  of  office  emulating  the  vices  of 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  who  happened  to 
be  in. 

As  Jesus  in  His  earthly  life  was  always  feeding 
His  human  nature  out  of  the  Divine  nature  on 
which  it  rested  in  mysterious  unity,  so  were  His 
special  judgments  always  drawing  largeness  and 
truth  from  the  simple  and  eternal  principles 
which  lay  below  them  in  His  consciousness. 
This  was  the  secret  both  of  His  boldness  and 
His  prudence.  Indeed,  I  think  that  we  can 
hardly  speak  of  Jesus  as  either  bold  or  prudent 
in  the  way  in  which  we  speak  of  other  men. 
The  region  of  principles,  of  absolute  righteous- 
ness and  truth,  lies  above  the  consciousness  of 
prudence  and  of  boldness  ;  and  it  was  in  that 
region  that  He  lived  and  moved.  An  illustration 
of  this  is  found  in  His  dealing  with  yet  another 
of  the  perplexing  questions  of  men's  social  life. 
They  brought  to  Him,  one  morning  in  the  Tem- 
ple, the  poor  shame-stricken  creature  whom  they 
had  arrested  in  adultery.  And  Jesus,  no  doubt 


I2O  The  Influence  of  Jesus 


seeing  first  that  He  had  touched  her  conscience, 
bade  her  go  free  and  live  a  better  life,  in  a  way 
that  must  have  seemed,  even  to  thoughtful  and 
sympathetic  Jews,  to  open  the  door  to  dangerous 
license  in  family  life  and  personal  chastity.  Then, 
when  perhaps  this  impression  was  still  fresh  in 
the  minds  of  men,  there  came  another  morning. 
Jesus  was  in  Judea  again.  And  one  day  His  old 
enemies,  the  Pharisees,  remembering,  perhaps, 
what  He  had  said  to  the  wretched  woman, 
began  to  ask  Him  about  marriage  and  di- 
vorce. And  then  Jesus  amazed  them  with  the 
lofty  stringency  of  His  ideas.  He  went  back 
beyond  Moses.  What  Moses  had  allowed  He 
would  allow  no  longer.  "Whosoever  shall  put 
away  his  wife,  except  it  be  for  fornication,  and 
shall  marry  another,"  He  declares,  "  committeth 
adultery."  But  along  with  His  decree  comes  the 
deep  principle  on  which  it  is  based,  —  "  Have  ye 
not  read  that  He  which  made  them  at  the  begin- 
ning made  them  male  and  female?"  It  all  goes 
back  to  the  creation.  It  is  part  of  the  birthright 
of  man  from  the  hand  of  his  Father,  this  right  of 
the  w:fe  to  th*  husband  and  of  the  husband  to 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  121 

the  wife.  It  is  no  mere  arrangement  for  the 
good  order  of  society.  It  is  in  the  very  nature 
of  the  children  of  God.  It  is  in  this  fundamental- 
ness  of  its  character  that  the  secret  of  His  large 
treatment  of  it  lay.  If  it  had  been  an  arbitrary 
rule  of  society,  it  could  not  have  been  trifled  with. 
A  single  indulgence  would  have  scattered  it  for- 
ever. But  an  essential  principle  has  flexibility 
which  an  arbitrary  rule  cannot  have.  A  mere 
rule-maker  can  have  no  personal  considerations. 
But  God,  in  whom  all  principles  reside,  from 
whom  they  all  proceed,  finds  room  for  personal 
discrimination  and  education  within  the  applica- 
tion of  His  principles.  It  is  the  depth  of  His 
government  that  makes  the  specialness  of  His 
government.  It  is  because  His  government 
comes  out  of  the  profoundest  secrets  of  His 
character,  that  it  is  able  to  adapt  itself  to  all  the 
individual  peculiarities  of  our  lives.  Who  can 
say  how  this  truth  may  affect  that  seeming  con- 
flict between  the  law  of  God  and  the  mercy  of 
God  which  has  driven  men  to  shape  for  them- 
selves such  strange  and  artificial  doctrines  of 
atonement  ?  And  it  is  in  the  wonderful  com' 


122  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

bination  of  the  vast  and  transcendental  with  the 
minute  and  the  familiar  in  Him  who  was  both 
"conceived  of  the  Holy  Ghost"  and  also  "  born  of 
the  Virgin  Mary,"  that  the  fitness  of  the  Savior 
not  merely  for  the  rescue  of  the  soul,  but  for  the 
salvation  of  society,  is  found. 

I  have  dwelt  so  very  long  upon  the  influ- 
ence of  Jesus  upon  the  general  social  life  of 
man,  that  not  many  moments  are  left  to  speak 
of  His  life  in  the  Church  and  in  the  State,  which 
were  parts  of  the  subject  that  I  undertook  to 
treat.  But  not  many  moments  are  needed  for 
the  little  that  I  want  to  say  on  each.  I  am  not 
called  upon  to  write  an  ecclesiastical  or  a  political 
treatise.  I  only  want  to  try  to  see,  according  to 
the  simple  picture  which  the  Gospel  gives  us, 
how  these  two  great  organisms  which  have  so 
filled  history  with  their  power,  the  Church  and 
the  State,  looked  in  the  eyes  and  stood  forth 
in  the  words  of  the  deep,  transparent  man  of 
Judea  and  Galilee  whose  influence  we  have  been 
endeavoring  to  feel. 

Of  the  Church  of  Jesus   I   think   we   nevei 


On  the  Social  I  if e  of  Man.  123 

cease  to  be  surprised  when  we  see,  as  we  read 
the  Gospels  with  eyes  out  of  which  the  mist  of 
ecclesiastical  history  has  been  wiped,  how  natu- 
rally and  simply  and  artlessly  it  was  the  expres- 
sion of  the  life  of  Jesus.  I  wish  that  I  could 
tell  the  story  with  as  entire  an  absence  of  the 
institutional  and  magical  and  artificial  air  which 
the  subsequent  centuries  have  breathed  around 
it  as  it  has  while  it  lies  shining  there  in  that  un- 
conscious and  immortal  story. 

The  great  French  writer  who  has  told  the 
story  of  the  life  of  Jesus  has  at  least  revived  for 
us  one  picture  which  we  had  almost  lost  be- 
hind the  curtaining  mists  of  the  long  Christian 
history.  He  has  shown  us  the  Master  walking 
with  His  group  of  disciples  along  the  borders 
of  Gennesaret,  now  lingering  in  a  little  village, 
now  traversing  a  field  of  corn,  now  pausing  on 
the  high  bluff  beyond  Capernaum  that  overlooks 
the  lake,  now  sitting  in  the  boat  and  talking  to 
His  friends  while  they  were  fishing.  A  curious 
picture  the  Frenchman  has  made  out  of  the 
scene.  It  is  partly  an  idyl  of  careless  peasants, 
partly  a  conclave  of  conspirators,  partly  a  sym- 


124  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

posium  of  philosophers.  It  is  half  Arf.adia  and 
half  the  Agora  of  Athens.  But  through  all  the 
confused  conception  this  at  least  is  kept,  — « 
clear,  fresh  sense  of  personal  companionship, 
of  a  group  gathered  and  held  about  a  personal 
centre,  and  gradually  becoming  fired  with  the 
idea  with  which  that  central  life  was  burning, 
until,  regenerated  by  that  idea  itself,  the  group 
became  the  regenerating  power  of  the  world.  If 
we  look  simply  at  the  transparent  story  of  the 
Gospels,  that  picture  gives  us,  beyond  all  doubt, 
the  cradle,  the  cell-life,  of  the  Christian  Church. 
The  history  is  full  of  human  nature.  The  open- 
ing life  of  Jesus  was  full  of  His  consciousness 
that  He  was  the  Son  of  God.  The  ambition  of 
which  His  soul  was  full  was  the  desire  to  let 
men  know  that  they,  too,  were  the  sons  of  God, 
and  to  rescue  them  into  the  full  enjoyment  of 
their  sonship.  That  desire  gave  to  the  young 
man's  opening  life  a  relationship  to  all  humanity. 
All  these  men  about  Him  were  His  unconscious 
brethren,  the  unconscious  children  of  the  Father 
in  whose  life  all  His  life  was  bound  up.  I  can 
think  of  the  boy  Jesus,  as  this  consciousness 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  125 


grew  in  Him,  going  from  day  to  day  with  deep- 
ening awe  about  the  streets  of  the  Galilean  vil- 
lage which  was  His  world.  The  men  who  laid 
their  hands  upon  His  head,  ths  women  who 
chattered  to  Him  with  their  motherly  good-will, 
the  boys  and  girls  He  played  with,  —  it  was 
dawning  upon  Him  that  these  were  all  children 
of  His  Father.  But  by  and  by,  out  of  the  multi- 
tude, began  to  gather  about  Him  those  in  whom 
this  consciousness  of  His  awoke  some  kindred 
consciousness.  A  young  man  here,  a  woman 
there,  sometimes  a  very  child,  with  a  child's 
insight  and  a  child's  strange  outlook,  —  all  these 
began  to  find  themselves  interpreted  in  Him. 
Their  deepest  questions  of  their  own  life  found 
some  answer  in  what  they  saw  Him  being  every 
day.  The  process  was  miraculous,  was  a  wonder, 
not  in  its  kind,  but  in  its  degree, —  in  the  depth 
to  which  it  opened  their  souls  and  filled  their 
doubts  with  light.  First  came  the  mere  attrac- 
tion of  His  presence  and  His  person.  Then  it 
was  found  that  this  attractior  had  its  source  in 
a  nature  which  they  gradually  came  to  know. 
Then  the  sight  of  this  nature  became  a  revela« 


126  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

tion  of  their  own  possibilities ;  a  new  life  for 
themselves,  like  His  life,  opened  to  them.  Then 
there  gradually  shone  out  from  this  revelation 
its  central  idea,  that  which  made  their  possibility 
possible,  that  in  whose  full  realization  their 
possibility  should  be  perfectly  attained.  They 
were  the  sons  of  God  ;  and  then  every  kindness, 
every  self-sacrifice,  every  devotion  of  His  life 
with  them,  softened  their  lives  more  deeply  with 
love,  for  the  more  and  more  complete  reception 
of  this  transforming  idea  into  their  heart  of 
hearts.  This  little  group  of  people,  who  had 
more  or  less  thoroughly  learned  what  Jesus  was 
revealing  every  day,  made  up  the  slowly  com- 
pacted company  of  the  disciples.  It  seemed  as 
if  it  were  going  to  stop  there,  perhaps.  If  it  had, 
there  would  have  been  only  another  sect  added 
to  the  many  sects  of  religionists  that  filled  the 
world.  But  what  came  next  ?  One  morning, 
after  Jesus  had  been  praying  on  a  mountain  by 
Himself  all  night,  as  soon  as  it  was  day,  "  He 
called  unto  Him  His  disciples,  and  of  them  He 
chose  twelve  whom  also  He  named  apostles." 
Out  of  the  heart  of  the  discipleship  comes  the 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  127 

apostleship.  Out  of  the  centre  of  the  learning 
comes  the  transmission.  The  inward  tendency 
reacts  into  the  outward  tendency.  The  idea  of 
Jesus,  which  has  been  revealing  itself  to  a  few 
and  enshrining  itself  in  their  experience,  reclaims 
its  essential  universalness  ;  and  the  best  of  the 
learners  are  the  first  to  be  sent  forth  into  the 
world,  which  is  the  true  partner  in  all  that  they 
have  found.  Jesus  says  to  the  most  earnest  of 
them  all,  "  I  will  give  unto  thee  the  key  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven."  He  touches  their  experi- 
ence, and  bids  them  remember  all  that  they  have 
learned.  "  Ye  are  witnesses  of  these  things," 
He  declares.  Some  outward  force  gave  sign  of 
the  idea  they  carried.  "  He  gave  them  power 
over  unclean  spirits."  All  these  things  sur- 
rounded them  with  certain  personal  importance. 
But  after  all  it  was  only  the  necessary  pulsing 
forth  of  that  which  had  been  gathered  inward 
for  the  outward  spring.  It  was  He  that  really 
went  torth,  and  His  going  forth  was  the  going 
forth  of  the  Father  whose  revelation  He  was. 
"  He  that  receive th  you  receiveth  Me,  and  He 
that  receiveth  Me  receiveth  Him  that  sent  Me." 


1 28  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

It  is  interesting  to  see  how  deep  this  relation- 
ship between  discipleship  and  apostleship  lies. 
It  bears  witness  at  once  that  the  influence  of 
Jesus  is  based  upon  and  fed  from  a  personal  idea, 
and  also  that  it  belongs  to  all  the  world.  By 
and  by  the  outgoing  Christian  life  began  to  draw 
in  upon  itself  again.  The  dogmatic  ages  came. 
The  apostles  were  again  disciples.  Then,  once 
again,  there  came  the  expansive  impulse.  The 
later  missionary  work  began.  The  newly  elabo- 
rated doctrine,  the  deepened  knowledge  of  God 
the  Father  in  Christ  the  Son,  reached  out  and 
craved  to  fill  the  world.  It  is  the  history  of  all 
life,  this  history  of  the  Christian  Church.  The 
knowing  of  Jesus  and  the  telling  of  Jesus  minis- 
ter to  and  succeed  each  other,  —  the  scholar  life 
and  the  missionary  life,  the  inward  and  the  out- 
ward movement,  the  systole  and  diastole  of  the 
Great  Heart  which  beats  eternally  with  the  idea 
of  Jesus. 

Let  us  dwell  with  what  interest  and  delight 
we  will  upon  the  rich  history  of  the  Church 
which  has  come  since,  the  germ  and  essence  of 
it  all  is  in  that  body  of  disciples  bound  to  each 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  129 

other  by  the  revelation  of  their  human  sonship 
to  the  Father.  It  is  a  family  picture.  The  Lord's 
Supper  realized  in  the  simplest  way  as  the  Fa- 
ther's table  is  its  transparent  sacrament.  I  would 
let  a  man  forget,  or  never  know,  all  about  councils 
and  bishops,  all  about  corruptions  and  reforma- 
tions, all  about  creeds  and  confessions.  If  he 
kept  that  picture,  he  would  know  the  open  secret 
of  the  Christian  Church.  He  would  keep  these 
truths  which  are  the  great  saving  truths  of  eccle- 
siastical history,  again  and  again  submerged  in 
the  waves  of  angry  times,  but  forever  reappear- 
ing in  their  power,  —  the  truth  that  the  ministry 
of  the  Church  is  not  distinct  from  and  above  the 
Church,  but  is  only  the  Church  itself  in  its  utter- 
ance, doing  and  saying  representatively  what  all 
the  Church  in  all  its  membership  has  the  right 
and  the  duty  to  say  and  do  ;  and  the  truth  that, 
as  an  elect  body,  the  Church  is  but  the  type  of 
the  complete  humanity,  —  elect,  not  that  it  may 
be  saved  out  of  the  world,  but  that  the  woild 
may  be  saved  by  its  witness  and  specimen  of 
what  the  whole  world  is  in  its  idea.  It  is  the 
sons  of  the  Father  who  have  learned  their  son- 

9 


1 3O  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

ship  through  the  Son  crying  to  all  the  family  oi 
God,  and  bearing  witness  that  to  be  a  son  of  man 
is  to  be  a  child  of  the  Almighty. 

The  church  spire  is  nothing,  after  all,  but  the 
elevated  and  prolonged  house-roof.  And  so  the 
battlemented  city  wall  is  but  the  enlargement 
and  solidification  of  the  simple  fence  that  encloses 
the  familiar  homestead.  If  the  idea  of  Jesus  is 
the  constructive  power  of  the  Christian  Church, 
it  lies  no  less  at  the  heart  of  the  whole  conception 
of  the  State  as  He  conceived  it.  Jesus  was  a 
patriot.  That  sentiment  which  makes  so  much 
of  the  poetry  of  the  earth  —  the  love  of  men  for 
their  native  land  —  was  very  strong  in  His 
bosom.  With  our  modern,  half-personal,  un- 
localized  ideas  of  Jesus,  it  must  always  be  strik- 
ing—  sometimes  it  is  startling  —  to  remember 
that  there  was  one  little  district  of  a  few  miles 
square  upon  the  surface  of  this  earth  which  was 
known  as  "  His  own  country."  That  little  group 
of  hills  with  the  quiet  valleys  among  them  which 
lies  between  Nazareth  and  the  Sea  of  Tiberias 
He  loved  as  we  love  the  streets  or  farms  where 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  131 

we  were  born.  And  not  very  far  off  to  the 
southward  lay  the  great  city  of  His  race,  where 
His  feet  never  seemed  to  enter  except  solemnly, 
and  over  which  He  wept  with  a  lamentation 
that  is  the  type  and  pattern  of  every  sincerest 
patriot's  most  loving  and  unselfish  sorrow  for  his 
sinful  land.  And  the  great  indignation  with 
which  Jesus  lashes  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
has  its  primary  meaning  in  that  same  passionate 
remonstrance  which  the  heart  of  every  patriot 
utters  when  the  land  he  loves  is  so  ruled  by  bad 
hands  that  he  cannot  give  his  love  free  utterance 
in  approbation  and  support,  but  is  compelled, 
perhaps,  to  work  against  his  country  because  he 
must  work  for  righteousness.  No  one  who  reads 
the  Gospels  can  miss  these  simple,  recognizable 
signs  of  the  true  patriotism  of  Jesus.  But  why 
is  it  that  His  patriotism  is  a  part  of  His  life  to 
which  we  least  often  turn  ?  It  is  not  only  that 
He  lived  a  larger  life  and  did  a  larger  work, 
which  has  far  outreached  the  Jewish  people  and 
touched  us  with  its  influence.  There  is  some- 
thing in  the  quality  of  His  patriotism  which  is 
peculiar,  which  separates  it  from  the  patriotism 


132  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

of  the  Athenian  or  the  Roman.  What  is  that 
quality  ?  It  is  the  constant  predominance  of  the 
sonship  to  God  over  the  sonship  to  David  in  his 
consciousness,  making  him  always  eager  for  the 
land  of  David,  because  of  the  interests  of  God 
which  it  enshrined.  This  is  a  distinct  and  defi- 
nite quality  when  it  appears  in  a  man's  patriot- 
ism. It  makes  his  patriotism  fine  and  lofty 
above  the  measure  of  the  common  patriotic  feel- 
ing of  mankind.  It  makes  the  patriot's  relation 
to  his  land  very  like  the  man's  relation  to  his 
body.  The  man  loves  his  body.  He  works  for 
it  by  natural  impulse.  He  is  not  always  thinking 
of  the  soul  which  the  body  contains,  and  which 
gives  to  it  its  value.  And  yet  it  always  is  the 
soul  which  makes  the  body  worthy  of  his  care 
and  work.  The  body  without  the  soul  —  the 
poor  dead  corpse,  or  the  beautiful  or  powerful 
structure  of  an  idiot  —  is  dreadful.  No  man  can 
work  with  healthy  joy  for  them.  And  so  it  is, 
as  Jesus  reveals  and  illustrates  it  to  us,  with  ref- 
erence to  a  man's  relation  to  his  country.  A 
true  man's  patriotic  impulse  is  spontaneous.  It 
springs  up  without  thought.  No  conscious  cal- 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  133 

culation  makes  me  love  the  hills  and  valleys,  the 
streets  and  houses,  of  the  land  where  I  was  born. 
But  yet,  unless  I  know  of  something  underneath 
all  this,  I  am  not  satisfied.  My  patriotism  lives 
and  flutters  as  a  sentiment  unless  I  know  that 
the  land  I  love  is  really  making,  by  its  constant 
life,  a  contribution  to  the  righteousness  and  prog- 
ress of  the  world.  When  I  know  that,  then  I  set 
my  patriotic  impulse  free  to  act.  My  land  be- 
comes to  me  merely  the  special  spot  where  I  am 
placed  to  labor  for  the  universal  spiritual  benefit 
of  man.  Then  the  old  Psalmist's  words  become 
real  to  me ;  and  as  I  live  my  life  of  citizen  or 
public  officer,  as  I  take  my  office  or  cast  my  vote 
or  pay  my  tax,  I  say  with  David,  "  Because  of 
the  house  of  the  Lord  our  God,  I  will  seek  to  do 
thee  good."  Such  was  the  perpetual,  self-limited 
character  of  the  love  of  Jesus  for  His  native 
land. 

I  know  that  here  is  the  essence  of  what  most 
men,  as  they  look  at  history,  are  apt  to  dread  to- 
day, —  of  a  theocracy,  of  a  religious  State  and  of 
a  State  religion.  If  this  which  I  have  said  be 
true,  —  if  the  State  and  its  machineries  be  valu- 


134  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

able  to  the  Christian  patriot,  as  His  State  was 
valuable  to  Jesus,  because  of  the  spiritual  in- 
terests which  they  enshrine,  because  of  the 
family  life  of  man  with  God  which  they  repre- 
sent, —  then  why  should  he  not  ask  that  the 
State  should  manifest  its  spiritual  function  to 
the  fullest  degree  by  becoming  distinctively  and 
openly  the  minister  of  Christ  ?  Why  should  he 
not  ask  that  Christianity,  as  he  conceives  it  and 
as  it  seems  to  him  to  be  unspeakably  important, 
should  be  taught  in  the  State  schools?  Nay,  why 
should  he  not  ask  that  only  men  distinctively 
and  positively  Christian  in  belief  and  life  should 
be  intrusted  with  the  conduct  of  the  nation  ? 
How  can  he  live,  how  can  he  be  a  patriot,  in  any 
land  which  is  as  purely  secular  in  its  administra- 
tion as  all  our  lands  are  growing  more  and  more 
to  be  ?  It  is  an  urgent  question.  We  can  only 
find  its  answer,  I  think,  in  two  considerations 
which  nc?  man  can  ignore.  One  is  that  the  ideas 
and  methods  of  spiritual  men,  and  even  of  Chris- 
tian men,  are  so  divergent  from  one  another  that 
it  is  only  on  the  broadest  basis  of  the  most  gen- 
eral purposes  of  spiritual  life  that  they  can  meet, 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  135 

—  not  in  their  special  methods  or  their  special 
creeds,  but  only  in  the  desire  and  assertion  of 
righteousness  and  truth  to  which  all  their  meth- 
ods and  their  creeds  belong.  The  other  consid- 
eration is  that,  even  were  all  spiritual  men  at 
one,  they  still  might  doubt  whether  it  would  be 
well  to  make  the  government  of  their  land  the 
agent  and  maintainer  of  their  faith.  Any  ma- 
chinery of  government  which  men  have  yet 
devised  is  too  coarse  and  clumsy  for  so  delicate 
a  task  as  the  inculcation  and  encouragement  of 
faith.  Government  works  by  compulsion  ;  faith, 
by  inspirations.  Government  lays  its  hand  on 
actions ;  faith  nestles  into  unseen  affections. 
Government  estimates  appearances  ;  faith  looks 
only  at  realities.  And  so  government,  though 
all  the  land  were  unanimously  and  harmoniously 
Christian,  would  still  be  a  poor  minister  of  Chris- 
tianity. These  are  the  considerations  which 
make  the  Christian  man  consent  to  live  in  a 
State  whose  chosen  policy  is  secular,  and  yet 
lets  him  feel  that  there  are  unowned  spiritual 
influences  and  powers  in  her  to  which  he  may 
rejoice  to  lend  his  aid. 


136  The  Influence  of  jfesus 

Let  these  considerations  pass  away,  let  all 
the  spiritual  desire  and  aspiration  of  the  land  be 
fused  into  a  perfect  unanimity  of  thought  and 
action,  and  let  some  new  finer  machinery  of 
governmental  action  be  devised  or  developed 
which  shall  be  capable  of  spiritual  uses  ;  and  then 
theocracy,  a  religious  State,  a  State  religion,  a 
national  creed,  a  Christian  public  education,  a 
divine  responsibility  in  every  officer,  —  all  these 
would  be  not  merely  conceivable,  they  would  be 
the  only  methods  which  the  Christianized  State 
could  think  of  for  a  moment.  There  could  be 
nothing  secular  in  such  a  heavenly  community 
as  that.  Only  it  would  be  altered  utterly  from 
what  we  see  now.  It  would  be  the  New  Jeru- 
salem for  which  we  hope,  and  not  the  old  earthly 
city  which  we  know  so  well.  At  present  we  can 
only  keep  it  constantly  before  our  eyes  and 
always  proclaim  it  as  the  true  ideal.  We  can, 
and  I  think  we  ought  to,  earnestly  assert,  when 
men  praise  it  most  loudly,  that  secularism,  how- 
ever we  may  accept  it  cheerfully,  as  the  only  ex- 
pedient for  the  present  time,  is  not  the  highest 
nor  the  eternal  type  of  government.  We  may 


On  the  Social  Life  of  Man.  137 

strive,  by  that  devotion  to  the  spiritual  element 
in  national  life  which  even  pure  secularity  of 
public  methods  still  leaves  possible,  to  hasten 
the  day,  which  must  come  if  Christ  be  what  we 
know  He  is,  when  the  idea  of  Jesus  shall  be  the 
shaping  and  moving  power  of  the  Christian  State ; 
and  among  the  happy  sons  of  God  the  Son  of 
God  shall  evidently  reign,  as  the  old  phrase  de- 
scribes, "  King  of  nations  as  King  of  saints." 

I  must  not  even  stop  to  gather  into  a  summary 
what  I  have  said  to-night.  I  have  spoken  of  the 
principles  which  underlay  and  gave  form  and 
color  to  the  whole  social  life  which  Jesus  lived  ; 
and  then  specially  His  life  with  His  disciples 
and  His  life  with  His  nation.  Those  principles 
were  always  the  same.  Jesus  the  Friend,  the 
Teacher,  the  Patriot,  is  always  first  Jesus  the 
Son  of  God. 

The  social  influence  of  Jesus  all  issues  from 
the  fatherhood  of  God  which  He  reveals,  and 
into  which  He  claims  God's  children.  By  it  the 
family,  the  Church,  the  State,  exist.  It  is  the 
power  of  construction  and  reform  and  education 


138  The  Influence  of  Jesu*. 

As  it  is  realized  in  each,  the  life  of  each  becomes 
exalted  and  inspired.  It  makes  all  history  di- 
vine. And  even  the  world  that  is  not  yet 
becomes  intelligible  when  we  can  look  through 
the  glowing  window  of  the  revelation  and  see 
the  idea  of  Jesus  still  the  constructive  power  of 
the  society  of  heaven.  "  I  looked,"  says  John, 
"and  lo  !  a  Lamb  stood  on  Mount  Zion,  and  with 
Him  an  hundred  and  forty  and  four  thousand 
having  His  Father's  name  written  in  their  fore- 
heads." 


III. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  JESUS 

ON    THE   EMOTIONAL   LIFE   OF   MAN 


THE     INFLUENCE     OF     JESUS 

ON   THE   EMOTIONAL   LIFE   OF   MAN. 


~\  T  7E  say  that  life  is  made  up  of  joy  and  pain. 
But  it  is  not  really  so.  At  least,  when  we 
speak  in  those  words,  we  are  talking  of  life  only 
in  its  most  superficial  sense.  Joy  and  pain  are 
the  expressions  of  life,  but  not  life  itself,  not  its 
true  substance.  Far  down  beneath  them  both 
lie  the  real  processes  of  which  they  try  to  tell  the 
tale.  And  even  the  tale  they  try  to  tell  they 
cannot  tell  with  certainty.  The  same  essential 
life  which  makes  one  man  happy  makes  an- 
other man  sad.  And  so  even  as  symptoms  they 
perpetually  mislead  us.  If  I  am  really  trying  to 
get  at  the  quality  of  a  man's  living,  it  means  very 
little  to  me  at  first  to  know  that  he  is  a  happy 
man.  I  must  know  a  great  deal  more  about 
him  before  I  can  make  any  use  of  the  fact  that 
he  is  happy.  And  when  we  are  trying  to  test 
not  the  quality  of  another  man's  life  but  the 


142  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

quality  of  our  own,  all  of  us  who  are  thoughtful 
discover  very  early  that  happiness  or  unhappi- 
ness  may  mean  very  much  or  very  little,  that 
there  is  a  consciousness  underneath  sorrow  and 
joy  into  which  we  must  penetrate,  in  which  we 
must  live,  before  we  can  know  our  true  lives. 

And  yet  it  is  by  joy  and  pain  that  lives  mostly 
communicate  with  one  another.  The  man  who 
lacks  emotion  lacks  expression.  That  which  is 
in  him  remains  within  him,  and  he  cannot  utter 
it  or  make  it  influential.  And  on  the  other 
hand  the  man  who  lacks  emotion  lacks  recep- 
tiveness.  That  which  other  men  are,  if  it  does 
not  make  him  glad  or  sorry,  if  it  gives  him 
neither  joy  nor  pain,  does  not  become  his.  The 
emotion  of  lives  is  the  magnetism  that  they 
emit,  something  closely  associated  with  their 
substance  and  yet  distinct  from  it,  in  which 
they  communicate  with  one  another.  There  is 
a  condition  conceivable  in  which  the  emotions 
should  be  so  delicately  and  perfectly  true  to  the 
quality,  of  the  lives  from  which  they  issue  that 
they  should  furnish  a  perfect  medium  of  com- 
munication. That  would  be  a  state  of  existence 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         143 

in  which  truth  and  goodness  should  inevitably 
shine  forth  in  gladness  from  the  man  who  was 
true  and  good,  and  should  instantly  be  answered 
in  gladness  from  every  other  man  on  whom  they 
struck.  The  poet  sings,  — 

"  Serene  shall  be  our  days,  and  bright 
And  happy  shall  our  nature  be, 
When  love  is  an  unerring  light, 
And  joy  its  own  security." 

The  prophecy  declares  itself  not  yet  fulfilled. 
It  is  a  noble,  truthful  condition  for  which  we 
are  waiting.  Until  it  comes  he  who  would  find 
life  must  look  behind  joy  and  sorrow,  and,  while 
He  questions  them,  can  never  let  their  answers 
pass  unchallenged,  must  always  cross-question 
and  examine  them,  and  see  what  this  especial 
joy  or  sorrow  means. 

I  am  to  speak  to-day  about  the  influence  of 
Jesus  through  joy  and  sorrow,  —  the  way,  that 
is,  in  which  the  life  that  was  in  Him  came  forth 
from  Him  through  His  evident  happiness  and 
suffering,  and  entered  into  other  men  through 
the  happiness  and  suffering  that  He  awoke  in 
them.  It  is  the  study  of  a  subtle  history, 


144  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

crowded  with  pathetic  interest,  which   is  going 
on  through  all  these  years  of  the  Gospels.     As 
I    took  up  the  subject  it  seemed  to  me  to   be 
necessary  that  I  should   say  first  of  all  what  I 
have  said,  that  both  in  Jesus  and  in  those  who 
come   under    His   influence  there   is  something 
behind    the    suffering   and   happiness  in    which 
they    meet    each    other,    and    that    the    happi- 
ness  and   suffering  are   but   the    light    or   the 
aroma  which  come  from  the  life  behind.   "  Can 
any  connection  be  traced  between  the  chemical 
nature  of  a  substance,  or  the  conditions  under 
which   it   burns,   and   the    nature   of   the   light 
which   it   emits  ? "     That   is   the   statement    of 
one   of   the    most    interesting  problems   which 
natural  science  has  met  in  this  day  of  its  many 
triumphs,  the  problem    whose  study  has  led  on 
to  the  spectrum   analysis   and  all   its    wonders. 
Can   any   true    connection    be    reliably    traced 
between  the  way  that  a  man  lives  and  the  joy 
or  sorrow  that  his  life  emits  ?     That  is  the  cor- 
responding question  in  moral  science  for  which 
no   man    has  yet   devised  its  spectroscope,  but 
which,  as   it   finds  its   solution  more  and  more, 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        145 

must  deepen  a  hundred-fold  the  intercourse  of 
man  with  man  and  man's  understanding  of 
himself. 

What,  then,  was  it  that  lay  behind  the  phe- 
nomena of  pleasure  and  pain  in  Jesus  ?  First 
of  all,  no  doubt,  experience,  the  simple  doing 
of  acts  and  undergoing  of  contacts,  without 
regard  to  the  emotions  they  produced.  It  is  a 
striking  fact  that  many  of  the  words  which,  in 
long  use  of  them,  have  become  exclusively  ap- 
propriated to  pain  originally  belonged  simply 
to  experience  without  reference  to  whether  it 
brought  distress  or  pleasure.  The  old  Greek 
and  Latin  words  from  which  our  words  for  suf- 
fering come  simply  meant  "  to  undergo,"  and 
were  used  of  the  contact  with  happy  as  well  as 
with  unhappy  things.  It  was  to  touch  and  be 
touched  by  the  furniture  of  the  great  crowded 
world.  And  even  our  English  words  which 
are  stained  all  through  with  the  associations 
of  pain,  the  very  word  "  suffering "  itself,  and 
"  patience  "  and  "  submission  "  and  that  hard 
word  "bear," — they  all  essentially  mean  nothing 
but  experience.  It  is  something  taken  on  the 
10 


146  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

back  and  carried,  but  that  may  be  either  a 
burden  under  which  the  bent  back  groans,  or 
an  inspiration  and  delight  under  which  the 
shoulders  leap  and  grow  buoyant  as  the  proud 
mother's  arms  do,  when  she  carries  her  first- 
born child.  Is  it  not  a  sign  that  human  misery 
overweighs  human  joy,  or  at  least  a  sign  that 
men  have  come  to  think  that  there  is  far  more 
of  pain  than  of  happiness  to  be  suffered  in  the 
world,  that  the  words  of  experience  have  come 
to  be  words  of  sadness,  as  if  the  touch  of  life 
must  wound  us  all  and  make  us  sore  ?  At  any 
rate,  the  history  of  such  words  bears  witness  that 
there  is  a  conception  of  experience  back  of  pain 
and  pleasure,  in  a  region  where  the  conception 
of  them  has  not  yet  been  born,  that  the  life, 
which  shows  itself  in  enjoyment  or  distress,  con- 
sists in  the  actions  and  contacts  out  of  which 
the  enjoyment  or  distress  proceeds.  And  so 
our  first  step  is  to  trace  the  real  influential 
life  of  Jesus  back  into  the  actual  experiences 
of  His  life.  It  is  not  essentially  because  He 
was  happy  or  was  sad  that  He  has  such  power 
over  men  to-day.  It  is  because  of  what  He  did 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        147 

It  is  because  of  His  part  in  our  human  lot  and 
the  way  in  which  He  bore  that  part.  If  He 
had  borne  pain  somewhere  else,  in  some  region 
of  transcendental  experience  which  we  could  not 
understand,  whatever  mysterious  power  might 
have  been  attributed  to  that  pain  in  influencing 
ths-  currents  of  the  universe  and  its  government, 
it  never  could  have  come  to  any  direct  influence 
upon  the  hearts  and  lives  of  men.  And  on  the 
other  hand,  if  it  had  been  possible  for  Him  to  live 
our  life  and  share  our  lot  completely  and  yet 
have  known  no  pain,  have  passed  in  sunny  joy 
from  Bethlehem  to  Olivet,  His  life  would  still 
have  been  the  influential  power  of  the  world. 
That  was  not  possible.  To  live  a  life  like  His 
in  such  a  world  as  ours,  by  a  deep  inevitable 
necessity  involved  the  pain.  The  cross  was 
the  predestined  seal  on  that  experience.  But 
yet  the  experience  is  separable  from  the  pain, 
and  it  was  in  the  experience,  not  in  the  pain, 
that  the  true  life  abode. 

This  is  the  first  step  backward.  But  we  can- 
not rest  here.  The  mere  experiences  which 
make  up  any  man's  career  cannot  really  consti- 


148  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

tute  his  life.  They  are  too  incoherent.  Our 
histories  are  not  our  lives.  The  idea  of  life  is 
unity.  Experiences  are  manifold.  Underneath 
their  superficial  variety  they  must  find  unity 
in  some  controlling  law.  They  have  no  char- 
acter save  what  they  get  from  it ;  and  without 
character  there  is  no  true  life.  The  next  step 
back,  then,  in  the  true  life  of  Jesus  is  to  the  law 
which  lies  behind  the  experiences,  in  which 
must  rest  the  reason  and  the  meaning  of  His 
going  hither  and  thither  and  meeting  this  and 
that  man, —  now  up  to  Jerusalem,  now  down  to 
Galilee,  now  sitting  arguing  with  Nicodemus, 
now  pouring  out  His  heart  to  His  disciples,  now 
in  calm  dignity  replying  to  the  taunts  of  the 
Pharisees.  His  own  conception  of  the  law  of 
life  is  clear  enough.  •'  My  meat  is  to  do  the 
will  of  Him  that  sent  Me,"  He  once  said.  It 
was  God's  will,  not  His  own  choice,  not  their 
own  fitness,  not  even  directly  the  good  of  the 
men  about  Him,  that  made  him  do  the  acts  and 
incur  the  contacts  that  filled  up  His  days. 
God  willed  these  things.  That  was  the  unity 
in  which  all  His  experiences  found  their  con- 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        149 

sistency.  That  was  the  soil  in  which  their  roots 
were  set,  from  which  they  drew  their  nourish- 
ment. That,  in  the  deeper  meaning,  was  His 
life  ;  the  Law  by  which  He  lived,  the  will  of  God. 
And  yet  there  is  another  step.  A  law  is  not 
the  final  life.  It  cannot  be.  Law  is  external, 
but  life  is  something  which  must  fill  every  inmost 
part  of  a  man's  being.  It  must  think  in  his 
brain,  throb  in  his  heart,  and  make  the  will  leap 
like  a  resolute  muscle  to  its  task.  A  law  cannot 
do  that.  It  is  not  intimate  enough.  That  must  be 
done  by  something  which  is  part  of  the  man  him 
self,  something  that  is  his  own,  some  form  in  which 
the  world  outside  himself  has  passed  into  his  being 
and  given  itself  to  him,  some  conception  which  is 
a  fountain  of  force  and  inspiration.  Now,  all  that 
can  only  be  fulfilled  in  some  controlling  and 
inspiring  idea,  some  idea  or  conception  which, 
taking  possession  of  the  intelligence,  has  then  set 
fire  to  the  affections,  and  so  possesses  the  whole 
man.  When  you  get  back  to  that  you  can  go 
back  no  farther.  Here,  then,  we  are,  where  we 
have  started  in  each  of  our  lectures.  Here  we 
are,  once  again  at  the  idea  of  Jesus.  That  idea, 


150  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

as  1  conceive  it,  as  I  am  sure  you  know  by  this 
time  that  I  conceive  it,  is  the  fatherhood  of  God 
to  man,  to  be  made  known  by  Jesus  to  mankind 
through  the  clear  manifestation  of  His  own  son- 
ship  to  God.  Ideas  make  for  themselves  laws 
by  their  own  inherent  and  divine  creativeness. 
The  law  which  Christ's  sonship  to  God  makes  is 
obedience  to  God.  The  way  in  which  Christ's 
obedience  to  God  enters  into  Him  and  becomes 
more  than  a  rule  of  action,  becomes  the  very 
element  in  which  He  lives,  is  by  its  being  per- 
petually fastened  to,  perpetually  fed  out  of,  His 
idea  that  He  was  the  Son  of  God.  In  that  idea, 
that  fundamental  conception  of  His  mind,  that 
fundamental  affection  of  His  soul,  you  find  at  last 
what  you  have  been  seeking,  His  real  life.  You 
can  go  back  no  farther.  You  have  laid  your 
hand  upon  the  Man  of  the  Gospels,  where  His 
being  becomes  one  with  the  uncaused  Existence 
of  eternity.  At  last  you  have  found  the  true  life 
of  Jesus. 

I  think  that  it  is  like  that  marvel  and  mystery 
of  nature,  so  familial*  and  yet  so  strange,  so  per- 
petually repeated  in  our  sight  and  yet  so  far 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        151 

away  from  the  apprehension  of  anything  in  us 
save  our  imagination,  —  the  wonder  that  fills  the 
woods  and  will  burst  forth  between  the  very 
bricks  of  cit)  streets,  —  the  ever  old,  ever  new 
mystery  of  the  growing  and  flowering  of  a  plant. 
The  flower  opens  on  the  stalk  ;  but  the  flower  is 
not  the  life,  for  you  may  pluck  it  off  leaf  by  leaf, 
and  the  plant  still  lives.  The  stalk  builds  its 
strong  fibre ;  but  its  fibres  are  not  life,  for  they 
may  all  be  perfect  and  the  plant  be  dead.  The 
hungry  roots  reach  out  into  the  fertile  ground  ; 
but  the  roots  are  not  life,  only  wonderful  channels 
to  bear  the  life  that  has  been  given  them.  Not 
until  you  see  the  earth  give  itself  to  the  plant, 
and,  turning  into  sap,  send  itself  through  the  wait- 
ing veins  until  it  flushes  into  color  far  up  in  the 
air,  —  not  until  then  have  you  gone  back  where 
you  can  go  back  no  farther,  and  really  found  the 
life.  So  here  is  the  perfect  flower  of  the  life  of 
Jesus.  It  is  the  blood-red  flower  of  the  cross.  Is 
that  pain  life  ?  Surely  not.  The  thief  beside  him 
bears  pain  too,  and  we  can  call  it  only  death.  Is 
life,  then,  the  experience  that  brings  the  pain? 
The  injustice  of  the  rulers,  the  mocking  of  the 


I  52  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

people,  the  brutality  of  the  soldiers,  —  is  that 
His  life?  No,  surely  not.  The  deadest  soul 
might  have  encountered  all  of  these  experiences. 
Is  it,  then,  that  deep  compulsion  that  lay  under- 
neath it  all  ?  Is  it  that  necessity  which  has  been 
on  Him  all  His  days  that  He  should  do  His 
Father's  will,  that  compulsion  which  has  brought 
Him  to  the  cross?  Not  yet  have  we  attained 
the  life,  for  mere  obedience  may  be  mere  death. 
But  behind  all  there  lies  the  idea  of  Jesus,  that 
God  is  His  Father,  and  that  He  may  make  these 
men  know  that  He  is  their  Father  too.  When 
that  is  touched,  behold  the  miracle !  See  how 
the  dry  roots  of  obedience  fill  themselves  with 
love ;  see  how  the  hard  stalk  of  experience 
grows  soft  and  pliable  with  purpose ;  and  then 
see  how  the  flower  of  pain  utters  a  life  profoundly 
deeper  than  itself,  and  tells  the  world  that  story 
which  it  is  the  struggle  of  all  pain  and  pleasure 
in  the  career  of  Christ  to  tell,  which  all  healthy 
pain  or  pleasure  in  the  career  of  man  is  tempting 
him  to  learn,  —  of  man's  unbroken  sonship  to  his 
Father,  of  the  belonging  of  his  soul  to  the  soul 
of  God. 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        153 

I  have  dwelt  long  upon  this  analysis  of  the 
real  seat  of  influential  life  in  Jesus,  because  onl) 
by  understanding  this  can  we  truly  understand 
the  position  and  meaning  which  He  would  give 
to  suffering  and  enjoyment  in  His  life  or  in  ours. 
I  trust  that  the  importance  of  what  I  have  been 
saying  will  appear  as  I  go  on.  It  will  be  enough 
at  present  to  suggest  as  the  principle  which  gov- 
erns all  Christ's  treatment  of  these  phenomena 
of  life  that  in  His  thought  of  them  they  are 
phenomena.  They  are  not  essential,  they  are 
accidental.  Consequently  they  are  neither  to 
be  sought  nor  shunned,  but  to  be  accepted  as 
they  come,  with  a  welcome  which  goes  below 
them  and  deals  with  the  conditions  out  of  which 
they  spring.  Jesus  always  thinks  of  Himself  as 
undergoing  the  will  of  God,  because  God  is  His 
Father.  The  pain  and  pleasure  which  come  to 
Him  in  undergoing  that  will  come  not  simply 
with  their  own  inherent  qualities  of  comfort  or 
discomfort,  but  with  the  values  which  they  get 
from  that  obedience  of  which  they  are  the  signs 
and  consequences.  This  is  the  key  to  all  His 
attitude  towards  them.  And  of  this  principle  all 


154  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

the  special  study  to  which  we  now  proceed  will 
be  in  illustration. 

Our  subject  properly  divides  itself  into  two 
parts :  I.  What  is  the  position  and  meaning 
of  enjoyment  and  sorrow  in  the  life  of  Jesus  ? 
2.  What  is  the  position  and  meaning  of  enjoy- 
ment and  sorrow  in  the  life  of  His  disciples  ?  It 
is  once  more  a  Biblical  study  in  which  we  are 
to  engage,  and  the  ground  over  which  we  are  to 
••ange  is  the  rich  field  of  the  four  Gospels. 

I  ask  you  to  recall  as  simply  as  you  can,  as 
much  as  possible  as  if  you  read  it  for  the  first 
time,  the  story  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  One  of  the 
things  which,  if  we  can  do  that,  will,  I  think, 
impress  us  most,  will  be  the  constant  presence  of 
the  emotions  of  pleasure  and  of  pain  in  the  ex- 
perience of  Him  whose  history  we  are  reading, 
whose  person  in  those  graphic  pages  stands  be- 
fore us.  We  shall  have  occasion  in  a  few  mo- 
ments to  go  over  in  detail  the  series  of  special 
instances  ;  but  just  now  remember  merely  the 
general  impression  which  the  story  makes.  It 
is  a  country  with  an  atmcsphere.  Clouds  and 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         155 

sunshine  are  playing  across  its  surface  all  the 
time.  The  actual  features  of  the  varied  land- 
scape are  always  changing  their  aspect  with  the 
light  that  falls  upon  them.  The  special  events 
which  happen  have  an  additional  character  as 
they  lie  in  the  light  or  in  the  shade.  What  a 
landscape  would  be  which  had  no  atmosphere 
above  it,  which  received  no  shadow  and  no  sun- 
light on  it,  that  would  a  life  be  which  was  made 
up  of  events  but  knew  no  emotions.  A  dreadful 
place !  Hills,  valleys,  oceans,  rivers,  fields,  all 
perfect,  all  grouped  with  one  another  in  complet- 
est  symmetry,  but  all  bathed  in  one  monotonous, 
unchanging  light ;  all  the  same  every  day  and 
every  hour ;  no  soft  transitions  from  the  solemn 
gloom  into  the  happy  brilliance,  none  of  that 
change  of  smile  and  frown  with  one  another  that 
makes  us  feel  the  fitness  when  we  talk  about  the 
"  face  of  nature  "  !  A  dreadful  world  !  A  world 
in  which  no  character  could  grow,  no  manhood 
ripen.  The  life  of  Jesus  shows  us  no  such  world 
as  that.  It  is  changing  every  moment  with  the 
light  and  shade.  A  sensitiveness  whose  quick- 
ness to  impressions  we  feel  almost  painfully 


1 56  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

trembles  in  every  line.  Only  —  and  here  is 
where  the  principles  which  I  have  just  been 
stating  show  their  influence  in  His  life  —  Jesus, 
with  all  His  sensitiveness  to  pain  and  joy,  still 
never  allows  pain  or  joy  to  be  either  the  purpose 
of  life  or  the  test  of  life  with  Him.  The  country, 
to  renew  our  figure,  is  bright  with  sunshine  or  se- 
rious with  shadow,  and  gets  its  ever-changing 
beauty  from  their  constant  alternation  ;  but  it 
never  sets  itself  to  work  to  make  the  clouds 
whose  shadows  are  to  rest  upon  it,  nor  does  it 
judge  its  landscape  by  the  special  gloom  or  glory 
which  is  cast  on  it  at  any  moment.  So,  to  speak 
not  in  figure,  the  sensitiveness  of  Jesus  to  pain 
and  joy  never  leads  Him  for  a  moment  to  try  to  be 
sad  or  happy  with  direct  endeavor ;  nor  is  there 
any  sign  that  He  ever  judges  the  real  character 
of  Himself  or  any  other  man  by  the  sadness  or 
the  happiness  that  for  the  moment  covers  His  life. 
He  simply  lives,  and  joy  and  sorrow  issue  from 
His  living,  and  cast  their  brightness  and  their 
gloominess  back  upon  His  life  ;  but  there  is  no 
sorrow  and  no  joy  that  He  ever  sought  for  itself, 
and  He  always  kept  a  self-knowledge  underneath 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         157 

the  joy  or  sorrow,  undisturbed  by  the  moment's 
nappiness  or  unhappiness.  They  were  like  rip- 
ples on  the  surface  of  the  stream,  made  by  its 
flow,  and,  we  are  ready  to  imagine,  enjoyed  by 
the  stream  that  made  them,  not  sought  by  the 
stream  for  themselves,  nor  ever  obscuring  the 
stream's  consciousness  of  its  deeper  currents. 
The  supreme  sorrow  of  the  cross  was  never 
sought  because  it  was  sorrowful,  and  even  while 
He  hung  in  agony  it  never  obscured  the  certainty 
of  His  own  holiness  in  the  great  Sufferer's  soul. 
These  are  the  perpetual  characteristics  of  the 
emotional  life  of  Jesus,  which  our  theology  has 
often  conjured  out  of  sight,  but  which  are  of  un- 
speakable value,  as  I  think ;  for  a  clear  under- 
standing of  them  puts  the  Man  who  suffered  and 
enjoyed  more  than  any  other  man  that  ever  lived 
in  a  noble  and  true  relation  to  His  suffering  and 
joy,  and  makes  His  pain  and  pleasure  a  gospel 
to  men  in  their  sadness  and  their  gladness  every- 
where. 

I  turn  to  a  more  minute  examination  of  the 
illustrations  of  this.  The  pleasures  and  suffer- 
ings of  Jesus  lie  in  three  different  classes,  and 
each  of  them  demands  our  careful  study. 


158  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

The  first  class  is  composed  of  those  which 
belonged  to  His  physical  nature,  —  those  which 
could  not  have  come  to  Him,  which  could  not 
come  to  any  man,  except  through  the  medium  of 
a  human  body.  It  is  good  to  see  how  manifold 
these  joys  and  sorrows  are.  They  begin  in  that 
strange,  half-conscious  life  of  infancy,  where  it  is 
always  so  hard  to  estimate  pleasure  and  pain, 
where  it  is  so  hard  to  tell  what  value  to  give  to  a 
cry  that  issues  from  an  infant's  lips  or  a  smile 
that  plays  across  his  face.  And  yet  the  pain 
and  delight  of  childhood  we  know  are  realities, 
inextricably  snarled  in  with  the  first  possession 
of  a  mortal  body  which  breathes  the  breath  of  this 
alert  and  exacting  world.  The  poverty  and  pri- 
vation of  the  inn  at  Bethlehem  and  the  forced 
and  hurried  journey  into  Egypt  are  instances  of 
what  I  mean.  They  are  not  events  on  which 
we  need  to  dwell.  What  they  were  to  Jesus  we 
cannot  tell.  They  touch  the  outmost  rim  of  the 
capacity  of  pain  ;  but  they  open  the  way,  for 
what  comes  afterwards.  They  declare  what  life 
is  goinf  to  mean  to  this  new  mortal  who  has 
come  "into  its  power.  They  are  the  first  few 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         159 

notes,  not  clearly  intelligible  in  themselves,  but 
giving  us  the  key  in  which  the  opening  life 
is  to  be  lived.  But  as  soon  as  the  dim  thicket 
of  infancy  opens  into  the  clear  path  of  manl} 
life  it  becomes  apparent  that  all  the  spiritual  ex- 
periences of  Jesus  have  an  almost  unexampled 
association  with  His  physical  life.  Very  few 
men's  souls  are  so  bound  in  with  their  bodies  as 
was  His  with  the  frame  He  wore.  At  the  very 
outset  of  His  public  career,  when  His  self-under- 
standing was  gathering  itself  up  for  the  work  Hd 
had  to  do,  He  went  away  into  the  desert  and 
was  tempted.  What  happened  there  is  at  once 
one  of  the  most  mysterious  and  one  of  the  most 
intelligible  passages  in  the  life  of  Jesus.  To 
any  man  who  has  been  young,  who  has  faced 
life,  who  has  listened  while  many  voices  called 
him  to  turn  aside  into  plausible  paths,  and  the 
one  great  voice  of  the  God  of  Duty  called  him 
right  onward  to  whatever  might  await  him,  —  to 
every  such  man  the  essential  meaning  of  the 
Temptation  is  beyond  all  doubt.  At  the  same 
time  its  special  scenery  and  action  is  very  vague. 
Material  fact  and  impalpable  vision  shoot  through 


160  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

each  other  and  cannot  be  unsnarled.  But  this, 
at  least,  is  plain,  —  the  body  shared  in  the  expe- 
rience. Long,  painful  hunger  went  before  the 
spiritual  trial,  and  it  is  out  of  lips  at  once  weak 
and  tense  with  physical  exhaustion  that  the  pat- 
tern answers  of  all  tempted  souls  proceed.  By 
and  by  came  another  event  which  brings  some- 
thing of  the  same  confusion  of  the  mysterious 
and  the  intelligible.  Jesus  goes  up  into  another 
mountain,  and  is  transfigured.  Indeed,  in  many 
respects  this  story  belongs  beside  the  story  of 
the  Temptation.  The  two  mountains  are  the 
complements  of  one  another.  As  the  Tempta- 
tion was  the  typical  utterance  of  the  perplexed 
conditions  of  human  living,  so  the  Transfigu- 
ration was  the  irrepressible  utterance  of  the 
essential  glory  of  human  nature  filled  with  di- 
vinity, reclaimed  and  openly  asserted  to  be  the 
Son  of  God.  And  in  the  Transfiguration,  as  in 
the  Temptation,  the  body  has  its  share.  Not 
merely  does  the  soul  enjoy  sublime  converse  with 
G>d  and  with  the  past.  A  sweet  and  awful  glad- 
ness shines  out  from  the  face  and  hands,  and 
even  pierces  from  the  hidden  limbs  through  the 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         161 

coarse  garments  which  shine  "white  as  the  light." 
I  do  not  know  the  meaning  of  it  all,  but  I  know 
that  what  came  to  the  spiritual  came  in  some 
echo  to  the  physical,  and  the  body  shared  the 
gladness  of  the  soul.  And  when  we  turn  the 
page  again  and  look  into  Gethsemane,  the  same 
completeness  of  the  human  life  is  there.  "  Being 
in  an  agony,  He  prayed  more  earnestly,  and  His 
sweat  was  as  it  were  great  drops  of  blood." 
However  it  may  be  swathed  about  and  purified 
and  glorified  by  the  suffering  of  the  consecrated 
soul,  there  was  physical  pain  there  in  the  Garden 
on  the  night  before  the  cross.  The  next  day  came 
the  cross  itself,  and  the  struggle  of  the  devout- 
est  souls  with  themselves  has  always  been  to  keep 
the  sight  of  the  body's  agony  from  monopolizing 
all  their  pity,  and  hiding  from  their  sight  the 
nobler  and  deeper  suffering  of  the  tortured  spirit 
of  the  Crucified.  In  all  of  these  scenes,  is  it  not 
striking  to  see  how  the  body  bore  the  spirit 
company,  how  there  came  no  spiritual  delight  or 
mi  ;cry  but  that  the  physical  chords  were  struck 
and  could  be  heard  sounding  through  the  finer 
and  more  subtle  music? 
ii 


1 62  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

Again,  it  is  not  possible  for  one  who  really 
wants  to  know  the  sort  of  life  that  Jesus  lived  to 
turn  away  indifferently  from  what  the  people  said 
about  Him  who  used  to  see  Him  every  day 
Morning  by  morning,  night  by  night,  He  went 
about  those  strange  old  streets  where  men  looked 
at  Him  curiously,  —  exactly  as  we  should  look 
at  any  wondrous  life  that  came  and  set  itself  in 
the  familiar  framing  of  these  streets  which  we 
know  so  well.  All  the  more,  often,  because 
they  had  no  keen  spiritual  sympathy  with  Him, 
the  outward  life  which  He  lived  photographed 
itself  upon  their  watchful  observation.  They 
were  like  reporters,  not  like  disciples,  and  so 
their  superficial  account  of  what  He  did  was  per- 
haps all  the  more  true.  What  did  they  say  ? 
One  day  He  told  them  what  He  had  often  over- 
heard :  "  The  Son  of  man  is  come  eating  and 
drinking,  and  ye  say,  Behold  a  gluttonous  man 
and  a  wine-bibber."  Coarse,  brutal,  full  of  hostile 
caricature,  no  doubt  the  words  are ;  but  still 
they  give  us  the  sort  of  picture  which  we  would 
like  to  have,  from  his  foe's  pencil,  of  any  man 
whom  we  desired  to  know.  At  least  there  must 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         163 

be  an  indication  in  what  direction  His  life  was 
lived.  No  man  with  callous,  stolid  body,  that 
could  not  suffer  and  could  not  enjoy,  could  ever 
have  been  taunted  with  that  peculiar  tone  of 
mockery. 

But  there  is  something  else  in  Jesus  that 
always  gives  me  a  profound  and  vivid  sense  of 
how  that  human  body  which  He  wore  was  full  of 
the  capacity  of  suffering,  and  of  how  large  a  part 
of  His  total  experience  its  emotions  made.  The 
fear  of  death,  or  rather,  perhaps,  the  fear  of  dying, 
is  something  almost  wholly  physical.  I  know  it 
is  not  conscience,  —  it  is  not  the  dread  of  meet- 
ing, as  we  feebly  say,  a  God  with  whom  she  has 
lived  in  tenderest  and  most  trusting  communion 
for  these  forty  years,  —  I  know  it  is  not  these  that 
make  a  true,  pure  saint  turn  white-cheeked  and 
tremble  when  you  go  and  tell  her  that  she  is  to 
die.  The  emotion  really  has  its  birth  where  you 
behold  its  symptoms,  in  the  body.  It  is  the  flesh 
that  shrinks  from  the  thought  of  dissolution  with 
as  truly  a  physical  instinct  as  that  with  which 
the  finger  draws  back  from  the  knife  that  pricks 
it.  Now  through  the  Gospels  there  runs,  almost 


164  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

from  the  beginning,  a  Via  Dolorosa  whose  stones 
you  can  almost  feel  still  tremble  under  the 
feet  of  Jesus  walking  to  His  more  and  more 
clearly  realized  death.  One  day  at  Crcsarea  Phi- 
lippi  we  can  begin  to  trace  it  first.  "  From  that 
day  forth  began  Jesus  to  shew  unto  His  disciples 
how  that  He  must  suffer  many  things  of  the  elders 
and  chief  priests  and  scribes,  and  be  killed." 
Then  dow,n  in  Galilee,  "  Jesus  said  unto  them, 
The  Son  of  man  shall  be  betrayed  into  the  hands 
of  men,  and  they  shall  kill  Him."  Then,  on  the 
way  up  to  the  city  where  the  cross  was  waiting, 
"  Behold  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  and  the  Son  of 
man  shall  be  betrayed,  and  they  shall  condemn 
Him  to  death,  and  shall  deliver  Him  to  the  Gen- 
tiles to  crucify  Him."  It  is  a  horror  that  belongs 
to  a  man  whose  body  loves  to  live.  "  If  it  be 
possible,  let  this  cup  pass  from  Me."  It  was  the 
cup  of  death,  long  watched  and  waited  for,  at 
last  felt  pressing  with  its  cold  rim  on  the  lips. 
"  It  is  finished."  It  was  the  same  cup,  drained 
at  last,  and  the  body  giving  itself  ever  to  the 
peace  of  death  which  lay  on  the  othei  side  of  the 
drea.dfulness  of  dying. 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         163 

It  is  an  unnatural,  a  somehow  unhumanized 
eye  that  does  not  fiftd  these  signs  of  the  physi- 
cal sensibility  of  Jesus  scattered  all  through  the 
Gospels.  A  poor  sick  woman  crawls  up  and  lays 
her  finger  on  His  garment's  hem.  Instantly  He 
turns  and  asks,  "  Who  touched  Me  ? "  He  has 
felt  her  finger  through  the  sensitive  body  and 
the  sensitive  soul  together.  Who  can  picture  the 
pain  and  pleasure  which  always  must  have  been 
beating  into  His  nature  through  the  sensitive 
substance  of  a  body  such  as  that  ? 

But  there  is  another  region  in  which  the  physical 
conditions  are  unmistakably  active,  while  it  yet 
lies  close  on  the  borders  of  the  purely  spiritual 
being.  Into  that  region  we  must  follow  Jesus 
before  we  can  understand  all  the  susceptibility 
to  pain  and  joy  that  was  bound  up  with  the  body 
that  He  wore.  It  is  the  region  in  which  man 
feels  the  influences  of  external  nature,  and  gath- 
ers delight  or  sorrow,  is  exalted  or  depressed, 
by  the  touches  of  the  world  around  him.  How 
wide  and  rich  that  region  is  in  the  best  and  com- 
pletest  men,  all  of  us  know ;  and  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  one  can  consider  the  way  in  which  Jesus 


1 66  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

treated  the  world  of  nature,  and  especially  can 
read  His  parables,  without  being  sure  that  He 
lived  in  that  region  and  was  open  to  its  influences 
always.  "  Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field,  how 
they  grow,"  He  cried,  as  they  walked  together, 
treading  the  autumnal  crocus  under  foot.  "  Lift 
up  your  eyes  and  look  on  the  fields,  for  they  are 
white  already  to  harvest."  So  He  caught  the 
picture  of  His  truth  as  He  sat  by  the  well  at 
Sichera  and  gazed  down  the  bright  open  valley 
that  leads  toward  Jerusalem.  "  When  it  is  even- 
ing ye  say,  Fair  weather,  for  the  sky  is  red  ;  and 
in  the  morning,  Foul  weather  to-day,  for  the  sky 
is  red  and  lowering."  So  the  influence  of  the 
sky  overhead  flowed  down  into  His  teaching. 
\nd  in  one  parable  —  so  short,  so  perfect,  the 
exquisite  jewel  among  the  parables  —  all  the 
work  that  He  was  doing,  all  the  promise  of  God 
for  humanity,  shone  out  in  the  picture  which 
had  sunk  into  His  soul  in  countless  quiet  walks 
through  peaceful  fields.  "  So  is  the  kingdom  of 
God  as  if  a  man  should  cast  seed  into  the  ground, 
and  should  sleep  and  rise  night  and  day,  and  the 
seed  should  spring  up  and  grow  he  knoweth  not 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        167 

how."  In  all  these  there  is  pleasure.  Joy  comes 
in  through  the  quick,  delighted  eyes,  and  runs 
through  all  the  physical  frame,  which  is  part  of 
that  natural  beauty  to  which  it  responds,  —  a  joy 
that  interprets  to  the  healthy  man  the  happiness 
of  the  happy  brutes,  as  there  is  another  joy  that 
gives  him  some  understanding  of  the  bliss  of 
God. 

"  How  good  is  man's  life,  the  mere  living ;  how  fit  to  em- 
ploy 

Ail  the  heart  and  the  soul  and  the  senses  forever  in 
joy !  " 

This  is  the  joy  that  sings  itself  under  the  deep 
lessons  of  the  parables,  like  the  music  under  the 
pathos  of  a  hymn,  or  the  tingle  of  blood  under 
the  solemn  consecration  of  the  soldier  who  rushes 
to  the  fight. 

And  now  what  is  the  meaning  of  this  sensi- 
bility to  pain  and  pleasure  which  belonged  to 
His  body  ?  What  did  it  mean  to  Jesus  ?  It  is 
not  hard  to  read.  It  is  a  witness  of  the  com- 
pleteness of  human  life  in  Him.  Pure  health  it 
is  which  answers  instantly  to  external  physical 
conditions  with  their  appropriate  reply.  True 
healthiness  is  always  sensitive.  To  go  into  any 


1 68  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

Gethsem  me  and  not  to  feel  the  body  sympathize 
with  the  soul,  is  not  completeness  but  meagre- 
ness  of  life.  To  stand  where  food  is  spread  be- 
fore us  and  either  morosely  to  hate  it  or  greedily 
to  clutch  it,  both  are  morbid.  Both  the  ascetic 
and  the  glutton  are  self-conscious.  The  true 
human  being  forgets  the  body,  not  because  the 
body  is  detached  and  cast  away,  but  because  the 
body  is  doing  its  work  perfectly,  —  as  the  passen- 
ger on  the  great  ship  forgets  the  engine  only 
because  the  engine's  healthy  pulse  has  become 
part  and  parcel  of  his  shipboard  life. 

And  again,  the  physical  sensibility  of  Jesus 
bore  testimony  to  the  condition  of  the  world  He 
dwelt  in.  How  wonderfully  interesting  it  be- 
comes in  this  regard  !  The  perfect  health  regis- 
ters disorder  by  its  pain  as  truly  as  it  proclaims 
and  praises  order  by  its  happiness.  And  here  was 
Jesus,  standing  with  His  representative  human 
body  in  this  manifold  and  complicated  world. 
How  will  the  world  utter  itself  on  Him  ?  Behold, 
now  a  quick  pain  leaps  through  Him  as  He  treads 
on  some  serpent  in  the  way;  now  a  sweet  joy 
falls  through  the  body  on  the  spirit,  as  the  breath 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         169 

of  heaven  blows  upon  His  cheek.  Pain  and  joy, 
joy  and  pain,  in  quick  succession  !  What  shall 
we  say  ?  What  can  we  say,  but  that  here  in  the 
centre  of  the  Bible  the  philosophy  that  runs 
through  the  Bible,  the  philosophy  which  makes 
man  the  centre  arid  registering  test  of  nature, 
comes  to  its  perfection  ?  The  Old  Testament 
had  told  of  how  nature  to  obedient  man  had  been 
all  good  ;  how  nature  to  man  disobedient  had 
declared  its  sympathy  in  thorns  and  thistles  and 
angry  beasts.  The  New  Testament  was  to  tell 
of  a  whole  creation  groaning  and  travailing,  wait- 
ing for  the  redemption  of  the  human  body.  Here 
in  the  midst  of  Scripture  stands  the  sensitive 
body  of  the  Son  of  Man,  fully  in  the  present  lot 
of  His  brother  men;  and  to  Him  the  mottled 
world,  the  world  that  was  God's  child,  and 
yet  was  full  of  selfishness  and  sin,  the  world 
whose  name,  as  He  Himself  gave  it,  was  the 
Prodigal  Son,  —  a  son,  but  prodigal;  prodigal,  yet 
a  son,  —  to  Him  this  mingled  world  declared 
itself  in  mingled  pain  and  pleasure,  and  wrote 
the  story  of  its  own  condition  in  what  He  suf- 
fered and  enjoyed. 


170  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

And  yet  once  more.  The  physical  sensitive- 
ness of  Jesus  no  doubt  helped,  as  no  other 
medium  could  have  helped,  that  deep,  mysterious 
process,  the  development  of  the  self-conscious- 
ness of  Jesus.  Why  should  I  not  believe  that 
out  of  the  physical  difficulties  which  tore  His 
hands  He  plucked  the  full  flower  of  His  knowl- 
edge of  His  own  soul,  and,  wrapped  up  at  the 
heart  of  that,  His  knowledge  of  the  soul  of  His 
Father?  Why  should  I  not  believe  that  His 
gratitude  for  the  pure  joy  of  physical  living  was 
one  of  the  doors  through  which  He  entered  into 
the  complete  sense  of  how  His  soul's  life  issued 
from  and  belonged  to  God  ?  That  which  is  the 
sign  of  any  condition  always,  by  a  subtle  law, 
deepens  and  ripens  and  confirms  that  condition. 
And  so  when  Jesus  said  to  Pilate,  who  was 
threatening  Him  with  the  physical  pain  of  cruci- 
fixion, "Thoucouldst  have  no  power  at  all  against 
Me  except  it  were  given  thee  from  above,"  it  was 
not  merely  a  testimony  that  He  felt  already  the 
holding  of  His  soul  in  His  Father's  everlasting 
hand,  it  was  also  a  nestling  of  the  soul  yet 
more  deeply  and  tenderly  into  the  hollov  of  the 
hand  that  held  it. 


On  the  Emotijnal  Life  of  Man.         171 

This  was  what  the  succession  of  physical  pain 
and  pleasure  meant  to  Jesus.  It  was  the  witness 
of  His  complete  human  life ;  it  was  the  register 
of  the  disordered  world  ;  and  it  was  the  instru- 
ment for  the  development  of  His  spiritual  con- 
sciousness. And  now  have  we  not  the  answer 
to  our  second  question  upon  this  first  point  ? 
What  did  He  intend  that  pain  and  joy  should 
mean  to  His  disciples  ?  These  same  three  things, 
no  doubt.  Think  of  the  times  when  He  dis- 
tinctly recognized  the  susceptibilities  of  their 
bodily  life.  Once  on  the  Sabbath  day  he  walked 
through  a  cornfield,  and  the  hungry  men  plucked 
the  ripe  ears  and  rubbed  them  in  their  hands  and 
ate  them.  Jesus  said,  "  The  Son  of  man  is  Lord 
of  the  Sabbath."  His  recognition  of  human 
nature  and  its  needs  lay  behind  the  positive  in- 
stitution v'^ich  He  did  not  dishonor.  Even  in 
Gethscmane  the  tired  friends  who  were  keeping 
Him  company  fell  asleep  ;  and  it  was  only  with 
the  wonder  of  one  who  for  the -moment  was  out 
of  the  power  or  hope  of  rest  that  He  dropped  His 
gentle  reproach  upon  them.  When  the  crowd 
followed  Him  across  the  lake,  He  was  as  quick 


172  The  Influence  of  J^esus 

to  see  their  starved  faces  as  He  \vas  to  read  their 
sinful  hearts.  "  I  have  compassion  upon  the 
multitude,"  He  said,  "  because  they  continue  with 
Me  now  three  Jays  and  have  nothing  to  eat."  It 
is  simply  to  Him  the  sign  that  they  are  men. 
He  touches  the  fact  of  their  humanity  in  helping 
them,  and  that  seems  to  give  Him  joy.  The 
same  appeared  when  men  came  to  Him  and 
complained  that  His  disciples  were  not  ascetics 
like  the  disciples  of  John.  "  Why  do  the  disci- 
ples of  John  fast  often,  but  Thine  eat  and  drink  ? " 
"Can  ye  make  the  children  of  the  bridechamber 
fast  while  the  bridegroom  is  with  them  ? "  He  re- 
plied. That  physical  pleasure  should  be  the 
accompaniment  of  spiritual  joy,  He  accepted  as 
part  of  the  harmony  of  the  universe. 

Nor  is  it  less  true  that  Jesus  accepted  the  pain 
of  other  men,  like  His  own  pain,  as  an  utterance 
of  the  condition  of  the  world  in  which  they  all 
were  living  together.  When,  as  He  put  His 
fingers  in  the  deaf  man's  ears  and  looked  up  to 
heaven  before  He  gave  the  poor  creature  hearing, 
He  sent  a  sigh  up  with  the  prayer,  it  must  have 
been  that  He  felt  thr  ugh  this  one  crack  the 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         173 

whole  tumult  of  the  disturbed  creation  in  which 
all  deformity  and  suffering  had  their  deep  roots. 
And  we  may  almost  turn  at  random  to  His  mira- 
cles :  see  Him  with  the  nobleman  who  came  from 
Capernaum  to  Cana,  cultivating  his  faith  at  the 
same  time  that  He  cured  his  son  ;  stand  with 
Him  in  the  boat  and  see  Him  send  calm  into  the 
tempest  and  into  His  disciples'  frightened  hearts 
at  once  ;  look  across  the  stormy  water  and  see 
Him  lift  Peter  out  of  the  waves  and  out  of  his 
doubt  at  the  same  time,  —  to  recognize  how  He 
always  used  the  body's  sensibilities  to  develop 
the  soul's  consciousness,  how  by  physical  pain 
and  joy  He  helped  the  spirit  to  know  itself  and 
to  knew  its  Father. 

To  Jesus,  and  to  His  disciples,  and  to  all  men 
who  know  the  bodily  life  as  He  knew  it  and 
taught  them  to  know  it,  the  pain  and  happiness 
of  which  the  human  body  is  capable  must  be 
very  noble  messages.  When  I  suffer  or  when 
I  enjoy,  —  when  down  these  nerves  the  quick 
agony  shoots  and  leaves  me  trembling  like  a 
poor  tree  which  the  blast  has  shivered,  or  when 
through  the  healthy  blood  peace  runs  like  the 


1 74  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

sunlight  on  a  flowing  river,  —  when,  in  the 
gate  of  life,  beneafh  affections,  thoughts,  dreams, 
memories,  desires,  there  is  always  felt  this  human 
body  with  its  pangs  and  blisses,  what  a  noble 
meaning  there  is  in  it  all  as  it  lies  open  to  the 
influence  of  Jesus  !  "  Lo,  I  am  human  ! "  And  all 
the  dignity  and  pathos  of  humanity  surrounds 
me.  "Behold  in  what  a  disturbed  and  struggling 
world  I  live ! "  And  hope  and  fear,  —  twin  cap- 
tains of  the  soul,  —  patience  and  expectation, 
spring  to  life.  "  See  here,  touching  this  very 
flesh  of  mine,  the  fingers  of  the  hand  whose  heart 
is  my  Father's,"  and  through  the  passions  which 
the  body  feels  opens  a  way  into  the  deepest  woes 
and  loftiest  pleasures,  which  can  belong  only  to 
the  sons  of  God. 

I  must  pass  on  to  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  the 
next  deeper  grade,  to  those  which  have  their  roots 
not  in  the  senses  but  in  the  affections.  They  are  a 
great  deal  deeper.  The  way  in  which  the  body's 
pains  will  easily  be  borne  or  the  body's  pleasures 
easily  be  sacrificed  in  order  that  we  may  delight 
ourselves  in  the  indulgence  of  the  affections  or 
escape  their  wounds,  is  proof  enough  how  we  all 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        175 

feel  that  the  heart  is  the  true  seat  of  life,  and  not 
the  body.  "  When  the  numbness  comes  up  to  my 
heart,  then  I  shall  depart,"  said  Socrates,  after  he 
had  drunk  the  poison.  The  passions  of  the  body 
may  mean  much,  but  they  can  never  mean  life  or 
death.  Only  in  the  loves  we  have  for  others  than 
ourselves  can  we  truly  live  or  die. 

When  we  come  to  study  this  region  of  the  life 
of  Jesus,  the  field  that  opens  to  us  is  very  wide. 
We  can  do  hardly  more  than  just  point  out  its 
features.  And  the  most  prominent  among  them 
all  must  be  the  absorbing  affection  of  His  life, 
the  pure  love  that  He  had  for  His  Father,  God. 
We  go  about  and  about  this  centre  of  the  life  of 
Jesus,  we  talk  of  what  it  made  Him  do,  we  talk  of 
how  He  tried  to  communicate  it  to  those  whom  He 
taught.  But  it  very  often  seems  to  me  as  if  those 
of  us  who  have  read  the  Gospels  most  have  but 
seldom  grasped  the  love  which  Jesus  had  for  His 
Father  and  understood  it  as  a  simple  conscious- 
ness ;  not  as  a  motive,  but  as  a  pure  atmosphere  of 
pleasure,  the  perpetual  bright  flower  of  the  abso- 
lute unity  of  will  which  was  between  them.  There 
are  some  simple  expressions  of  this  in  the  Gospel. 


176  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

which  get  their  profoundest  beauty  only  as  we 
think  of  them  with  the  most  absolute  simplicity. 
Jesus  one  evening  went  away  by  Himself  into  a 
mountain  and  "continued  all  night  in  prayer  to 
God."  We  say  that  He  was  seeking  preparation 
for  the  solemn  task  of  selecting  His  disciples, 
which  He  undertook  the  next  day.  Certainly 
the  communion  of  that  night  must  have  prepared 
Him  for  the  task,  but  in  itself  what  was  it  but 
the  simple  resting  of  one  nature  on  the  bosom 
of  the  nature  which  it  loved,  and  in  the  fact  of 
loving  which  it  found  its  perfect  joy  ?  I  think 
that  if  we  go  behind  that  simplicity  we  lose  the 
beauty  and  majesty  of  it  all.  The  most  majestic 
is  always  the  simple,  not  the  complicated.  And  so 
it  is  not  what  I  may  picture  to  myself  that  Jesus 
asked  of  His  Father  in  those  sacred  hours ;  it  is 
simply  that  Jesus  was  with  His  Father,  every  inter- 
ference of  the  daytime  being  completely  set  aside  ; 
that  life  touched  life  in  the  complete  communion 
of  love, —  that  is  the  final  fact  on  which  the  mind 
which  is  seeking  the  happiness  of  Jesus  in  the  life 
o''the  affections  rests  without  asking  for  analysis. 
That  is  only  one  instance.  Another  corn  * 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         1 7? 

before  us  in  that  deep  and  eager  cry  wilich  broke 
forth  from  the  lips  of  Jesus  on  the  cross.  "  My 
God,  M}  God,"  He  cried  out,  "  why  hast  Thou 
forsaken  Me?"  I  do  not  pretend  to  understand 
all  the  meaning  of  that  cry.  Nobody  understands 
it.  What  wonder  is  it  if,  when  the  last  words 
of  any  faithful  man  finishing  his  noble  life  have 
always  something  in  them  which  the  most  true 
and  lifelong  sympathy  that  stands  about  his  bed 
cannot  comprehend,  the  dying  words  of  Jesus 
should  have  mystery  in  them  and  suggest  strange 
questions  which  we  cannot  answer  ?  But  though 
I  do  not  understand  it  fully,  I  know  that  I  come 
nearest  to  its  meaning  when  its  meaning  seems  to 
me  most  simple.  It  is  pure  love,  —  love  thwarted, 
hindered,  and  perplexed,  but  yet  pure  love,  with 
that  triumph  which  love  always  carries  in  its 
very  existence  whether  it  reach  its  object  and 
call  back  response  or  not.  Jesus  does  not  beg 
for  release.  He  does-  not  even  ask  for  vindication. 
He  only  utters  love.  And  that  cry  after  His 
Father  lets  us  look  down  into  His  heart  and  see 
that  in  loving  His  Father  and  being  loved  by 
Him  was  His  perpetual  joy. 


178  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

And  yet  see  how  this  cry  of  Jesus  illustrates 
what  I  said  about  the  position  which  pleasure 
and  pain  always  took  in  His  life.  They  are 
always  subordinated  to  the  doing  of  a  will,  which 
will  in  its  turn  gets  its  value  from  the  idea  which 
inspires  it.  So  here.  The  joy  of  loving  and  the 
pain  which  only  love  can  bring  beat  tumultu- 
ously  together  in  this  cry.  But  underneath  them 
both  there  is  obedience,  and  the  idea  from  which 
obedience  proceeds.  Not  for  one  moment  does 
He  think  of  coming  down  from  the  cross  to  find 
His  Father.  Whether  He  find  Him  or  lose  Him, 
whether  the  issue  of  His  love  be  the  perfect  joy 
of  union  or  the  exquisite  suffering  that  separa- 
tion brings,  He  must  obey  Him  first.  Even  if 
His  doing  of  His  Father's  will  seems  to  shut 
Him  out  of  His  Father's  presence,  there  cannot 
be  a  question  ;  the  will  must  be  done.  Oh,  how 
often  souls  have  forgotten,  as  they  weighed  the 
raptures,  the  ecstasies  of  faith  against  its  hard 
and  present  duties  when  the  two  seemed  to  be 
not  compatible  with  one  another,  —  how  often 
they  have  forgotten  that  the  question  which  was 
greater  and  more  sacred  of  the  two,  the  rapture 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        179 

or  the  obedience,  was  settled  once  forever  on  the 
cross  ! 

We  pass  from  this  supreme  affection  of  Jesus 
to  the  others  which  are  included  in  it.  I  had 
occasion  in  my  last  lecture  to  speak  of  the  rela- 
tions which  Jesus  held  to  those  persons  who 
were  immediately  connected  with  Him  by  the 
ties  of  kindred.  I  refer  again  to  the  family  life 
in  which  He  lived,  only  to  notice  what  was  the 
kind  of  pleasure  and  suffering  that  it  brought 
to  Him  which  He  could  not  otherwise  have 
met.  That  it  did  bring  Him  both  there  can 
be  no  doubt.  In  all  his  intercourse  with  John 
the  Baptist  we  never  can  lose  remembrance  of 
the  relationship  between  them.  The  old  pic- 
tures which  have  grouped  them  as  children  by 
the  Virgin's  knee  express  a  feeling  which  we 
can  never  cast  aside.  It  is  impossible  to  make 
their  connection  simply  official.  When  John 
baptizes  Jesus,  it  is  a  kinsman's  hand  that  leads 
the  exalted  youth  into  the  water.  And  by  and 
by,  when  the  disciples  went  to  the  prison  and 
took  the  body  of  the  murdered  Baptist  and 
buried  it,  and  came  and  told  their  Master,  it 


180  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

was  for  one  of  His  own  family  blood  as  well 
as  for  one  of  His  own  divine  spirit  that  Jesus 
mourned.  And  there  is  another  passage  which 
always  seems  to  me  to  open  a  glimpse  of  the 
family  affection  which  was  in  the  heart  of  Jesus. 
He  had  avoided  Judea  because  it  was  not  safe 
for  Him  to  work  there.  He  was  laboring  in 
Galilee.  And  his  brethren  came  to  Him  and 
said,  "  Depart  hence  and  go  into  Judea.  If 
Thou  do  these  things,  show  Thyself  unto  the 
world."  It  was  almost  a  jeering  mockery. 
"  Neither  did  His  brethren  believe  in  Him," 
the  writer  adds.  The  pain  of  having  those 
doubt  Him  who  ought  to  know  Him  best,  of 
having  His  own  flesh  and  blood  turn  on  Him 
and  mock  Him,  —  it  is  evident  that  Jesus  knew 
what  that  pain  was,  and  that  it  was  something 
peculiar  to  Him,  something  different  from  the 
unbelief  and  hostility  of  the  promiscuous  crowd. 
Then  turn  for  another  instance  to  the  cruci- 
fixion, to  those  few  hours  of  distress  which 
sometimes  seem  to  epitomize  all  that  there  was 
in  His  entire  life.  "  There  stood  by  the  cross 
of  Jesus  His  mother  and  His  mothei's  sister," 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        181 

and  just  as  He  was  dying  the  Sufferer  turned 
and  gave  His  mother  to  the  care  of  His  disciple. 
"  Woman,  behold  thy  son  ! "  "  Son,  behold  thy 
mother ! "  It  was  a  pang  within  all  the  other 
pangs,  a  woe  that  perceptibly  added  to  their 
wretchedness,  when  among  the  faces  that  pitied 
Him  He  saw  her  face  who  bore  Him,  the  face 
into  which  He  had  looked  up  from  His  cradle. 
When  I  think  over  these  three  stories,  it  seems 
to  me  that  I  discover  what  the  real  meaning  was 
of  that  additional  element  of  joy  and  pain  which 
came  to  Jesus  through  His  family  affections. 
In  each  I  seem  to  see  that  the  family  relation- 
ship was  representative  of  something  deeper 
that  lay  in  behind.  His  special  connection  with 
those  special  lives  was,  as  it  were,  the  manifesta- 
tion point  of  His  relationship  to  all  the  world. 
What  He  was  to  those  brethren  who  had  always 
lived  in  the  same  house  with  Him  he  was  essen- 
tially to  all  mankind.  In  them  He  realized  with 
peculiar  vividness  what  was  true  of  all  the 
world.  All  men  were  sons  of  God  along  with 
Him,  but  that  sonship  shone  forth  in  a  peculiar 
clearness  in  these  men,  who  were  also  of  Mary's 


1 82  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

blood  as  well  as  He.  It  gave  him  joy  when 
any  of  His  brethren  in  the  most  remote  degree 
realized  the  sonship  which  was  revealed  in 
Him  or  (as  He  himself  expressed  it)  came  to 
the  Father  through  Him.  But  that  joy  was 
vividest  when  one  of  His  brethren  in  the  nearest 
and  most  special  sense  attained  that  high  belie£ 
The  pain  of  any  human  being  touched  Him, 
but  in  His  mother's  pain  humanity  pressed  itself 
closest  to  His  sensibility  and  gave  Him  a  special 
distress  proportioned  to  His  special  love.  In 
general,  the  woes  and  pleasures  through  His 
family  affections  were  those  which  belonged  to 
His  whole  contact  with  humanity,  only  deepened 
and  emphasized  and  vivified  by  the  particular 
dearness  in  which  these  kindred  lives  stood  to 
His  own. 

And  yet  I  hasten  on  to  say  that  such  an 
account  of  the  emotions  which  belong  to 
Christ's  domestic  life  does  not  in  the  least  con- 
flict with  that  spontaneous  character  which  is 
of  the  every  essence  of  such  emotions  always. 
Indeed,  the  best  and  noblest  natures,  as  I  think, 
are  marked  by  hardly  anything  so  much  as 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        183 

this,  —  the  simultaneous  spontaneousness  and 
reasonableness  of  the  lives  they  live.  One  kind 
of  man  is  all  spontaneous,  and  can  furnish  no 
account  of  what  he  feels  and  does.  Another 
kind  of  man  is  all  reasonable,  and  lets  no  impul- 
sive action  slip  from  his  will  till  it  has  ac- 
counted for  itself  to  his  conscious  understanding. 
Both  of  these  men  are  partial.  There  is  a  man 
who  is  more  complete  than  either,  who  is  as 
impulsive  as  a  child  and  yet  in  the  heart  of 
whose  impulsive  action  there  always  lies  the 
true  reasonableness  of  manhood.  He  does  the 
natural  human  acts  because  he  must  do  them, 
and  yet  he  knows  why  he  does  them.  The 
spontaneousness  does  not  obscure  the  reason, 
and  the  reason  does  not  hamper  and  clog  the 
spontaneousness.  So  it  always  seems  to  me 
that  it  is  with  Jesus.  He  presses  His  brother's 
hand  with  brotherly  affection.  His  brother's 
sneer  wounds  Him  as  no  stranger's  can.  His 
mother's  sorrow  enters  into  its  own  secret 
chamber  of  sympathy  in  Him  where  no  other 
sorrow  can  intrude.  And  yet  all  the  while, 
with  all  the  instinctive  value  which  He  gave  to 


184  Tks  Influence  of  Jesus 

them  for  their  own  sake,  these  home  affections 
all  are  ties  to  bind  Him  to  humanity,  windows 
through  which  He  looks  into  the  depths  of 
human  life,  interpretations  to  His  soul  of  the 
wider  brotherhood  in  the  vaster  family. 

Surely  there  is  here  a  noble  indication  of 
what  the  family  affections  as  sources  of  suffering 
and  happiness  may  be  to  all  men,  of  what  they 
must  be  to  all  men  who  dwell  in  them  within  the 
larger  family  which  Jesus  shows.  It  is  dreadful 
if  we  lose  their  spontaneousness.  Beyond  all 
analysis  there  lies  the  relation  which  every  true 
son  holds  to  a  true  father.  It  is  a  final  fact. 
You  cannot  dissolve  it  in  any  abstract  theory. 
It  issues  from  the  mysterious  sympathy  of  the 
two  lives,  one  of  which  gave  birth  to  the  other. 
It  has  ripened  and  mellowed  through  all  the  rich 
intercourse  of  dependent  childhood  and  imitative 
youth  and  sympathetic  manhood.  It  is  an  eter- 
nal fact.  Death  cannot  destroy  it.  The  grown- 
up man  feels  his  father's  life  beating  from  beyond 
the  grave,  and  is  sure  that  in  his  own  eternity 
the  child  relation  to  that  life  will  be  in  some 
mysterious  and  perfect  way  resumed  and  glori- 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         185 

fied,  that  he  will  be  something  to  that  dear  life 
and  it  to  him  forever.  All  this  remains  Its 
bright  spontaneousness  nothing  is  allowed  ;o  tar- 
nish. And  yet  the  adult  son  delights  to  learn 
how,  through  his  intimacy  with  that  nature  out 
of  which  his  sprang,  he  is  introduced  into  an 
understanding  of  the  whole  human  race.  In  a 
deeper  sense  than  we  are  apt  to  give  the  words, 
his  father  "brings  him  into  the  world."  His 
father's  life  is  to  him  the  illumination  point  of 
all  humanity.  In  loving  his  father  he  loves  his 
race.  And  all  the  joy  and  pain,  all  the  rich- 
ness and  pathos  of  his  home  life,  while  they 
keep  their  freshness  and  peculiar  sanctity,  have 
in  them  and  below  them  all  the  multitudinous 
happiness  and  sorrow  of  the  larger  life  in  the 
great  household  of  the  world.  The  child  feels 
something  of  this  truth  by  instinct.  The  thought- 
ful man  delights  to  realize  it  more  and  more  as 
he  grows  older. 

To  come  back,  however,  to  the  life  of  Jesus, 
we  are  aware  that  His  relations  to  those  who 
held  the  ties  of  kinship  with  Him,  while  they 
were  clear  and  real,  were  not  a  large  or  promi 


1 86  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

nent  element  in  His  life.  He  quickly  went  be- 
yond the  household  of  the  carpenter  in  His 
eagerness  to  attain  the  household  of  God.  He 
was  the  brother  of  all  men.  And  the  truth  of 
all  the  emotion  which  filled  the  social  life  of 
Jesus  when  we  sum  it  up,  seems  to  be  this :  that 
all  multiplied  and  deepened  relationships  with 
men  bring  mingled  joy  and  sorrow  ;  a  joy  and  a 
sorrow  which  it  is  not  possible  to  separate  and 
weigh  against  each  other,  because  they  are  so 
subtly  and  intricately  mingled  that  the  joy  makes 
part  of  the  sorrow  and  the  sorrow  makes  part  of 
the  joy,  and  you  cannot  take  away  either  without 
finding  that  the  other  has  eluded  you  ;  a  joy  and 
sorrow  also  which  no  man  can  ever  gain  by  di- 
rectly and  deliberately  seeking  them,  but  which 
come  unsought  to  every  man  who,  regardless  of 
the  pleasure  or  the  pain  they  bring,  enters  into 
profound  connections  with  his  fellow-men.  These 
are  the  two  key  truths  of  any  social  life  which 
goes  beyond  a  club  acquaintance  or  a  parlor 
friendship.  He  will  certainly  fail  who  hopes  to 
know  men  deeply  and  only  to  get  happiness  — 
never  to  get  anxiety,  distress,  disappointment  — 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         187 

out  of  knowing  them ;  and  he  has  mistaken  the 
first  idea  of  human  companionship  who  seeks 
friendships  and  contacts  with  mankind  directly 
and  simply  for  the  pleasures  they  will  give  him. 

Now  Jesus  quietly  and  steadily  met  both  these 
laws.  He  calmly  deepened  His  relations  to 
mankind  as  much  as  possible,  accepting  all  the 
pain  that  such  profound  relationships  might 
bring;  and  always  with  Him  the  happiness  or 
unhappiness  of  His  associations  were  but  acci- 
dents, and  not  the  final  purposes  for  which  He 
won  His  friends  or  encountered  the  hostility 
of  His  enemies.  Here  is  one  of  His  disciples, 
Simon  Peter.  Two  picturesque  moments  stand 
out  in  the  history  of  the  intercourse  of  Jesus 
tfith  that  interesting  man.  At  the  foot  of  Her- 
mon,  tempted  by  a  question  of  his  Master,  Peter 
burst  forth  with  a  hearty  and  enthusiastic  utter- 
ance of  his  conviction  of  the  divine  nature  which 
had  been  steadily  impressing  itself  upon  him. 
"  And  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him,  Blessed 
art  thou,  Simon  Barjona,  for  flesh  and  blood  hath 
not  revealed  it  unto  thee,  but  My  Father  which 
is  in  heaven."  In  the  high-priest's  house  at  Je- 


1 88  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

rusalem,  when  Jesus  was  standing  a  culprit  on 
the  night  of  His  arrest,  waiting  for  the  scourging 
and  the  cross,  He  overheard  this  same  Peter  say 
twice,  "  I  do  not  know  Him,"  when  some  ser- 
vants questioned  him  about  the  prisoner  whose 
fate  was  the  question  of  the  hour.  "  And  the 
Lord  turned  and  looked  on  Peter.  And  Peter 
went  out  and  wept  bitterly."  See  what  two  in- 
fluences came  out  of  this  friendship.  See  what 
joy  and  sorrow  issued  from  the  bosom  of  this 
love.  See  how  the  joy  at  hearing  the  confession 
of  such  a  profound,  far-reaching  truth  as  His 
own  divinity  must  have  been  full  of  fear  which 
was  almost  certainty  that  the  disciple  would  fail 
in  some  of  the  inevitable  applications  of  the 
truth  which  he  must  be  so  imperfectly  appreci- 
ating even  while  he  enthusiastically  proclaimed 
it.  See  how  the  suffering  which  the  treason 
brought  must  still  have  had  in  it  a  consolation, 
as  Jesus  detected  in  the  very  passion  of  the  de- 
nial the  crushed  remonstrance  of  the  love  which, 
even  under  the  denial,  was  living  still.  Or  take 
a  yet  harder  case.  Jesus  had  another  disciple 
whom  He  saw  slipping  more  and  more  away 


On  the  Emotional  Life  jf  Man.         189 


from  Him,  who  He  saw  would  some  day  betray 
Him  with  the  worst  ingratitude.  And  yet  I  think 
that  every  man  whose  sad  and  anxious  office  it 
has  ever  been  to  try  to  lift  a  soul  which  in  spite 
of  all  his  struggles  has  been  always  sinking 
deeper  and  deeper  into  the  depths,  will  bear  me 
witness  that  in  the  patience  and  wisdom  and 
faithfulness  which  his  Master  lavished  upon 
Judas  Iscariot  for  years  there  must  have  been  a 
pathetic  pleasure,  peculiar  and  subtle  because  of 
the  growing  hopelessness  of  results  which  com- 
pelled each  effort  to  find  its  satisfaction  in  its 
own  essential  nature.  It  must  have  had  some- 
thing of  the  delight  in  mere  service  with  which 
one  watches  at  the  bedside  of  a  sick  friend,  of 
whose  recovery  all  hope  is  gone.  And  both  in 
Peter  and  in  Judas  the  second  of  the  truths  of 
which  I  spoke  appears, —  that  it  was  not  for  the 
joy  or  for  the  sorrow  that  their  society  would 
bring  that  Jesus  sought  them.  Peter  and  Judas 
alike  He  sought  because  they  were  the  sons  of 
God  ;  the  pain  or  pleasure  they  would  give  Him 
came  afterwards  and  as  an  accident. 

Ir  all  of  Christ's  associations  the  same  inevi- 


190  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

table  mingling  of  the  sad  and  glad  appears. 
There  was  a  little  family  at  Bethany  in  which 
He  often  made  His  home,  and  the  last  time  He 
left  the  hospitable  door  He  carried  out  with  Him 
two  memories,  —  the  memory  of  how  the  eyes  of 
Mary  had  looked  up  into  His  face,  eager  with 
the  desire  to  understand  all  His  sacred  truth, 
and  the  memory  of  how  the  same  eyes  had 
streamed  with  tears  beside  her  brother's  tomb. 
The  same  voices  of  the  populace  at  Jerusalem 
which  cried  "  Hosanna  !"  cried  "  Crucify  him  !" 
before  the  week  was  done.  The  happiness  of 
promising  heaven  to  a  dying  thief  was  filled  with 
pity  that  only  by  a  torturing  death  had  the  poor 
wretch  been  brought  into  the  sight  and  hope  of 
life.  One  day  He  saw  a  poor  widow  in  the  Tem- 
ple give  a  true  charity  ;  but  the  same  sensitive- 
ness of  soul  which  made  Him  find  pleasure  in 
her  simple  act  laid  Him  open  to  the  distress 
which  only  such  a  soul  could  feel  at  the  ostenta- 
tious hypocrisy  of  the  Pharisees.  And  all  through 
His  life  the  deep,  enthusiastic  happiness  at  giv- 
ing men  the  chance  of  their  divine  inheritance 
was  mingled  with  the  distress  of  knowing  that 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         191 

men  who  would  not  take  what  He  held  out  to 
them  must  be  worse  off  than  if  He  had  not  come 
to  them.  "  He  that  heareth  My  word  hath  ever- 
lasting life,"  and  "  On  whomsoever  this  stone 
shall  fall  it  shall  grind  him  to  powder,"  —  the 
opposite  fates  of  men,  with  the  emotions  they 
awakened,  —  the  two  were  always  on  His  heart 
together  and  crowded  each  other  on  His  lips. 

So  it  must  always  be.  To  be  a  true  minister 
to  men  is  always  to  accept  new  happiness  and 
new  distress,  both  of  them  forever  deepening 
and  entering  into  closer  and  more  inseparable 
union  with  each  other  the  more  profound  and 
spiritual  the  ministry  becomes.  The  man  who 
gives  himself  to  other  men  can  never  be  a 
wholly  sad  man ;  but  no  more  can  he  be  a 
man  of  unclouded  gladness.  To  him  shall 
come  with  every  deeper  consecration  a  before 
untasted  joy,  but  in  the  same  cup  shall  be  mixed 
a  sorrow  that  it  was  beyond  his  power  to  feel 
before.  They  who  long  to  sit  with  Jesus  on 
His  throne  may  sit  there  if  the  Father  sees 
them  pure  an  J  worthy,  but  they  must  be  bap- 
tized with  the  baptism  that  He  is  baptized  with 


192  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

All  truly  consecrated  men  learn  little  by  little 
that  what  they  are  consecrated  to  is  not  joy  01 
sorrow,  b'lt  a  divine  idea  and  a  profound  obedi- 
ence, which  can  find  their  full  outward  expres- 
sion not  in  joy,  and  not  in  sorrow,  but  in  the 
mysterious  and  inseparable  mingling  of  the  two. 

There  yet  remains  one  other  class  of  pleasures 
and  sufferings  which  belong  to  all  devoted  and 
ideal  natures,  and  in  which  Jesus  had  a  share. 
It  consists  of  the  moral  joys  and  pains,  of  those 
which  come  from  the  acute  perception  of  right 
and  wrong,  of  moral  fitness  or  unfitness  in  the 
things  about  us.  You  cannot  put  a  man  very 
high  unless  you  give  him  a  good  share  of  that 
quality.  Merely  to  see  that  things  are  right  or 
wrong,  and  not  to  feel  a  pleasure  in  their  right- 
ness  and  a  pain  in  their  wrongness,  does  not  in- 
dicate a  finely  moulded  character.  The  moral 
perceptions,  even  the  moral  obediences,  do  not 
make  a  full  moral  life.  The  moral  emotions  must 
be  there  too.  That  such  a  power  as  this  was  in 
Jesus  nobody  can  doubt  who  knows  Him.  And 
yet  we  are  a  good  deal  surprised,  I  think,  when 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man,  ,      193 

we  survey  His  history  and  see  how  few  are  the 
moments  in  which  this  power  prominently  ap- 
pears. The  reason  is  that  the  life  of  Jesus,  and 
all  His  thoughts  and  feelings,  had  personal  shapes 
and  directions.  We  do  not  know  how  largely 
this  is  true  until  we  read  the  Gospels  with  this 
thought  in  our  minds.  The  great  moral  enthu- 
siasts kindle  when  they  see  a  good  deed  done, 
rejoice  in  the  progress  of  humanity,  have  a  keen 
happiness  when  some  new  instance  brings  out 
the  fitness  for  virtue  which  is  in  the  whole  great 
world,  and  on  the  other  hand  suffer  as  if  a  spear 
pierced  them  or  a  club  smote  them  when  a  bad 
action  makes  a  discord  and  wrongs  the  funda- 
mental purpose  of  the  world.  There  is  very 
little  indeed  of  that  in  Jesus.  We  cannot  think 
of  Him  as  a  pure  moral  enthusiast.  With  Him 
almost  everything  is  personal.  He  is  glad 
when  a  man  is  good  because  the  man's  own  life 
is  illuminated,  and  still  more  because  the  man 
glorifies  His  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  A 
wickedness  wounds  Him  because  it  is  a  degra- 
dation to  the  man  who  does  it  and  an  insult  to 
God.  Behold  Him  as  He  goes  into  the  Temple^ 


194  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

which  the  greedy  people  had  turned  into  a 
market-house.  It  is  "  My  Father's  house "  for 
which  he  is  so  jealous.  It  is  no  abstraction  of 
reverence  for  which  He  burns.  It  is  exactly 
as  if  a  child  came  home  and  found  his  moth- 
er's chamber  turned  into  a  huckster's  shop.  It 
is  as  literal,  as  personal,  as  that.  The  profound 
sense  of  unfitness,  of  discord,  is  there,  but  it  is 
held  in  solution  in  this  more  vehement  feeling 
of  personal  wrong.  It  is  this  personalness  of 
all  His  moral  enthusiasms,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
that  keeps  us  from  ever  feeling  or  fearing  in 
Jesus  any  of  that  moral  pedantry  —  or  what,  with 
a  word  that  has  no  dignified  equivalent,  we  call 
that  priggishness  —  which  haunts  the  words  of 
the  moral  enthusiasts  who  kindle  at  the  har- 
r.onies  and  discords  of  abstractions,  whether  they 
'./!k  as  utilitarians  or  as  transcendentalists. 

Nevertheless,  though  this  is  true,  the  sense  of 
the  absolute  must  underlie  and  must  appear 
through  the  personal  enthusiasms  of  Jesus. 
Otherwise  the  moral  quality  would  evaporate, 
and  His  personal  emotions  would  come  to  be  only 
mere  fondnesses  and  prejudices.  And  there  are 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         195 

instances  enough  in  which  we  can  feel,  beating 
and  shining  through  His  personal  affections,  the 
delight  and  sorrow  with  which  His  soul  recog- 
nized the  essential  qualities  of  holiness  anfl  sin. 
I  have  already  spoken  of  the  indignation  which 
possessed  Him  in  the  desecrated  Temple.  As 
an  illustration  of  the  opposite  emotion,  there 
occurs  that  beautiful  outburst  in  which,  almost 
with  surprise,  certainly  with  a  sudden  overflow 
of  gladness,  as  He  saw  the  perfection  of  the 
method  of  God's  treatment  of  the  world  and 
revelation  of  Himself  through  innocence,  Jesus 
breaks  out  and  cries,  "I  thank  Thee,  O  Father, 
Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  that  Thou  hast  hid 
these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent  and  hast 
revealed  them  unto  babes."  What  a  happy 
heart  is  there !  It  is  all  personal,  and  yet  the 
personalness  holds  clearly  in  its  heart  a  sense  of 
the  beauty  of  a  moral  idea,  —  the  idea  that  the 
profoundest  belongs  to  the  purest,  the  loftiest 
truth  to  the  innocent  and  guileless  heart.  One 
day  a  centurion  came  to  Jesus  and  wanted  Him 
to  work  a  miracle ;  and  as  they  talked  about  it, 
the  simplicity  of  the  man's  trust  came  out.  He 


196  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

illustrated  His  belief  in  the  power  of  Jesus  by 
describing  his  own  relation  to  the  forces  which 
were  under  him.  "  I  say  to  this  man,  Go,  and 
he  goeth  ;  and  to  another,  Come,  and  he  cometh." 
Instantly,  as  it  would  seem,  so  large  and  true  a 
conception  of  the  world  all  held  together  in  one 
sublime  system  of  authority  and  obedience,  run- 
ning up  to  the  highest,  running  down  to  the 
least  of  its  activities,  filled  the  soul  of  Jesus  with 
delight.  "  I  have  not  seen  so  great  faith,  no,  not 
in  Israel,"  He  said.  One  other  day,  in  a  remote 
country  village,  He  met  ten  lepers.  As  the  poor 
wretches  stood  afar  off  and  cried  to  Him,  He  bade 
them  go  and  show  themselves  to  the  priests. 
And  as  they  went,  lo,  their  leprosy  was  gone  and 
they  were  clean.  Then  one  of  them  turned  back, 
all  radiant  with  gratitude,  and  fell  down  at  his 
healer's  feet.  National  prejudice,  —  for  the  man 
was  a  Samaritan,  —  old  bitterness,  the  selfishness 
which  comes  with  sudden  happiness,  all  these 
were  broken  through,  and  there  he  lay,  all  over- 
whelmed with  thankfulness  and  love.  Mean- 
while the  other  nine  went  cheerily  upon  their 
way,  meanly  satisfied  with  the  mere  fact  of 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.         197 

health.  There  comes  a  sorrow  and  a  joy  into 
the  face  and  words  of  Jesus  which  are  primarily 
and  formally  personal,  but  are  not  wholly  so.  In 
at  the  heart  of  it,  it  is  the  joy  which  every  noble 
heart  feels  at  the  very  sight  of  gratefulness,  and 
the  pain  that  each  true  soul  experiences  at  the 
very  presence  of  ingratitude.  That  such  things 
are,  — ;  their  very  being  and  essential  qualities,  — 
these  are  what  wake  responses  of  gladness  or  of 
sadness  in  the  soul.  You  have  to  reach  in  and 
find  that  feeling  underneath  the  personal  emo- 
tions of  Jesus.  But  it  is  always  there.  When 
He  pities  Jerusalem,  His  pity  has  an  eternal 
dignity  about  it,  because  the  woe  which  He  com- 
miserates is  but  part  of  the  universal  tragedy 
of  sin.  When  the  poor  woman  stops  Him  by 
the  roadside,  and  with  the  wit  of  wretchedness 
claims  even  for  a  dog  some  crumb  of  the  precious 
mercy,  His  praise  of  her  is  more  than  recognition 
of  her  quick  rejoinder;  it  is  a  pleasure  in  the 
sight  of  that  clear  hold  on  the  right  of  the  weaker 
over  the  stronger  which  is  part  of  the  moral 
structure  of  the  universe.  And  at  the  last,  when 
the  supreme  joy  of  His  life  comes,  and  wi'b 


198  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

an  appeal  to  His  Father's  perfect  knowledge  He 
exclaims,  "  I  have  glorified  Thee  on  the  earth,  I 
have  finished  the  work  that  Thou  gavest  Me  to 
do,"  there  is  heard  inside  of  that  appeal  a  pure 
joy  in  the  establishment  of  righteousness  and 
the  setting  up  of  the  kingdom  of  salvation  which 
is  the  basis  of  the  personal  gratulation  that  the 
words  express.  I  must  not  multiply  illustra- 
tions. I  do  not  know  one  instance  of  Christ's 
joy  in  moral  harmony  that  is  not  held  in  the 
bosom  of  some  personal  affection.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  do  not  know  one  instance  of  per- 
sonal affection  which  does  not  get  its  value  from 
some  moral  emotion  at  the  centre  of  it.  That  is 
the  kind  of  moral  enthusiasm  which  the  influence 
of  Jesus  has  spread  throughout  the  world.  It  is 
not  calm,  cool  approbation  of  goodness,  it  is 
delight  in  a  good  man,  with  which  the  Christian 
kindles.  But  it  is  always  certainly  his  goodness 
in  him  —  not  his  mere  person,  but  the  moral 
nature  which  his  person  vividly  exhibits  —  that 
excites  the  Christian's  admiration.  And  so  it  is 
neither  an  enthusiasm  for  goodness  nor  an  en- 
thusiasm ol  humanity  that  the  influence  of  Jesus 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        199 

is  creating  in  the  world,  but  a  communion  of 
saints,  —  a  race  of  men  each  delighting  in  the 
other  for  his  holiness,  and  each  delighting  in 
holiness  for  the  brightness  that  it  gives  the 
others'  lives. 

I  do  not  think  that  it  would  be  right  to  close 
this  study  of  the  pleasure  and  the  pain  which 
Jesus  experienced  and  into  which  His  disciples 
are  constantly  led,  without  saying  two  or  three 
words  upon  a  point  which  may  often  suggest  a 
difficulty.  I  have  been  speaking  of  the  certain 
satisfaction  of  His  soul  in  moral  fitness,  in  the 
harmony  of  righteousness.  But,  some  one  asks, 
how  is  it  with  those  other  harmonies  in  which 
we  are  always  finding  delight,  the  fitnesses 
which  the  aesthetic  nature  recognizes  and  loves? 
Was  there  anything  of  those  in  Jesus  ?  Had  He 
anything  of  what  we  call  the  sense  of  artistic 
beauty  ?  Did  He  get  any  of  that  joy  of  taste  oi 
which  our  modern  life  makes  so  much  ?  It  is 
not  an  easy  question  to  answer  in  a  word.  We 
may  point  to  the  special  earnest  purpose  which 
filled  all  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  We  may  say  that 


2OO  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

He  who  was  walking  on  to  Calvary  had  no 
time  in  the  intenseness  of  His  moral  life  for  art 
and  its  luxuriousness.  We  may  say  that  He 
was  a  Jew,  and  it  was  not  in  the  nature  of  His 
race  to  gather  from  beautiful  things  that  happi- 
ness which  they  imparted  to  the  quick-eyed 
Greek.  We  may  say  that  it  was  a  mere  ques- 
tion of  the  accidental  circumstances  and  furni- 
ture of  the  life  of  Christ,  that  the  physical 
sensibility  and  the  moral  impressibleness  which 
we  have  been  studying  in  Him  make  un- 
doubtedly a  large  part,  while  undoubtedly  they 
do  not  make  the  whole  of  that  only  half- 
accountable  element  in  us  which  we  call  the 
aesthetic  nature,  and  so  that  the  capacity  of  the 
pleasure  which  that  nature  values  only  waited 
in  Him  for  some  circumstances  to  develop  it. 
We  may  say  that  though  Jesus  made  nothing 
of  artistic  beauty,  yet  His  religion  has  made 
much  of  it,  and  out  of  Christianity  the  highest 
artistic  life  has  come.  We  may  say  all  these 
things,  and  no  doubt  all  of  them  have  truth. 
But  still  the  great  impression  of  the  life  of 
Jesus,  as  it  seems  to  me,  must  always  be  of  the 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        20 1 

subordinate  importance  of  those  things  in 
which  only  the  aesthetic  nature  finds  its  pleas- 
ure. There  is  no  condemnation  of  them  in  that 
wise,  deep  life.  But  the  fact  always  must  remain 
that  the  wisest,  deepest  life  that  was  ever  lived 
left  them  on  one  side,  was  satisfied  without 
them.  And  His  religion,  while  it  has  developed 
and  delighted  in  their  culture,  has  always  kept 
two  strong  habits  with  reference  to  art  which 
showed  that  in  it  was  still  the  spirit  of  its  Mas- 
ter. It  has  always  been  restless  under  the  sway 
of  any  art  that  did  not  breathe  with  spiritual  and 
moral  purpose.  Never  has  Christian  art  reached 
the  pure  sestheticism  of  the  classics.  And  in  its 
more  earnest  moods,  in  its  reformations,  in  its 
puritanisms,  it  has  always  stood  ready  to  sacri- 
fice the  choicest  works  of  artistic  beauty  for  the 
restoration  or  preservation  of  the  simple  maj- 
esty of  righteousness,  the  purity  of  truth,  or  the 
glory  of  God. 

I  have  intimated  already,  once  or  twice  to-day, 
what  significance  there  is,  not  merely  in  the 
separate  presences  of  joy  and  trouble  in  the  life 


202  The  Influence  of  'Jesus 

of  Jesus,  but  also  in  the  proportions  which  they 
hold  to  one  another,  and  the  way  in  which  they 
are  perpetually  mingled.  Let  me  recur  to  that 
a  moment  as  I  close.  In  that  respect,  as  in 
many  others,  the  last  day  of  Jesus,  the  day  of 
His  crucifixion,  presents  no  unreal  picture  of 
what  His  whole  life  was.  That  day,  in  spite 
of  the  tragedy  which  was  ripening  fast  all  through 
the  morning,  and  the  cross  upon  which  the  sun 
went  down,  was  not  all  dark.  Strange  glimpses  of 
a  light  which  must  have  brought  deep  delight  to 
the  soul  of  Jesus  shone  out  through  all  its  course. 
Follow  Him  in  your  thought  from  the  time  when 
He  met  His  disciples  in  Jerusalem  the  night 
before.  First  came  the  sitting  down  at  supper 
with  them,  a  feast  of  joy,  the  only  familiar 
board  at  which  we  ever  see  Jesus  through  His 
life  before  His  crucifixion.  No  sooner  is  He 
there,  and  the  quiet  happiness  begun,  than  the 
disciples  begin  to  quarrel  about  some  foolish 
question  of  precedence,  and  Jesus  is  distressed. 
Then  comes  the  beautiful  action  in  which,  as  it 
were,  He  refreshes  the  joy  of  devotion  which  had 
filled  the  years  of  labor  that  were  all  over  now. 


On  the  Emotional  Lijs  of  Mai.        203 

He  bends  and  washes  the  disciples'  feet.  No 
sooner  is  that  done  than  Judas  has  to  be  con- 
victed and  dismissed.  Then  comes  the  bright 
moment  when  St.  Peter  bursts  out  with  his 
promise  of  loyalty,  followed  the  next  instant  by 
the  Savior's  sad  prophecy  of  how  near  His  disci- 
ple's weakness  lay  to  his  promised  strength. 
Next  follows  the  encouraging  description  of  the 
Spirit  of  comfort  and  strength  which  was  to  come 
when  Jesus  had  departed.  Then,  looking  in  the 
blank,  unsuspicious  faces  of  the  men  about  Him, 
the  Lord's  voice  sinks  again  as  He  foretells  how 
they  will  be  persecuted.  In  an  instant  all  that 
is  forgotten,  and  He  is  wrapt  away  from  all  the 
present  in  a  celestial  memory  and  a  divine  antici- 
pation. "  Now,  O  Father,  glorify  Thou  Me  with 
the  glory  which  I  had  with  Thee  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world."  With  that  ecstasy 
still  filling  Him,  He  goes  out  to  the  Garden  and 
its  agony.  He  is  betrayed  and  deserted.  Yet 
still  one  last  poor  flash  of  Peter's  loyalty  lightens 
the  darkness  for  an  instant.  The  denial,  the 
trial,  the  scourging,  the  crucifixion,  follow  fast. 
Yet  even  in  the  midst  of  their  horror  there  is 


2CU  Tlie  Influence  of  Jesus 

room  for  some  momentary  gleams  of  joy.  The 
wavering  of  Pilate  ;  the  cries  of  a  few  sympathetic 
voices  among  the  hooting  mobs  as  He  passed 
through  the  street ;  the  group  of  friends  at  the 
foot  of  the  cross  ;  and  then  that  great  joy  which 
must  have  fallen  into  His  spirit  when  from  the 
other  cross  there  came  a  cry  of  faith  and  hope ; 
at  last  the  utter  satisfaction  which  fills  His  soul 
as  He  exclaims,  "It  is  finished," — all  of  these 
come  in  to  show  that  the  very  agony  of  agonies 
was  charged  with  the  divine  capacity  of  joy. 
As  we  gather  the  total  impression  of  that  won- 
drous day,  how  complete  it  is !  How  joy  and 
sorrow  interfuse  and  blend  with  one  another! 
And  the  result  is  a  new  compound  of  life  which 
is  different  from  either.  How  evident  it  is  that 
by  some  principle  more  deep  than  just  that  joy 
is  pleasant  and  pain  is  hard  to  bear,  they  are 
distributed.  It  is  as  if  Jesus  walked  under  a 
cloud,  and  yet  felt  always  that  in  the  very  sub- 
stance of  cloud  there  was  suffused  and  softened 
light.  The  cloud  had  light  in  its  darkness  and 
darkness  in  its  light  ;  and  so  the  explanation  of 
it  all  was  clear.  A  sunlight  through  the  cloud 


On  the  Emotional  Life  of  Man.        205 

He  felt,  and  behind  the  sunlight  there  must  be 
a  sun.  Behind  the  bitter  circumstances  lay  a  law, 
the  blessed  law  of  obedience,  which  was  fellow- 
ship with  God  ;  and  behind  the  law  a  truth  which 
was  God  Himself. 

Under  that  same  cloud  of  circumstances  we 
must  walk;  but  if  there  is  behind  it,  for  us,  too, 
that  law  and  that  truth  which  really  made  the 
life  of  Jesus,  —  the  law  of  obedience  and  the  truth 
of  sonship,  —  then  for  us,  too,  light  shall  come 
through  the  cloud,  and,  mingling  with  its  dark- 
ness, make  that  new  condition  in  which  it  is  best 
for  a  man's  soul  to  live,  that  sweet  and  strong 
condition  in  which  both  joy  and  sorrow  may 
have  place,  but  which  is  greater  than  either  of 
them,  —  the  condition  which  He  called  peace. 


IV. 

THE    INFLUENCE   OF    JESUS 

ON   THE    INTELLFHTUAL    LIFE    OF    MAN. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  JESUS 

ON    THE    INTELLECTUAL    LIFE    OF    MAN. 


"TV /TEN  and  books  have  their  favorite  words, 
As  the  result  of  years  of  thoughtful  life, 
of  constant  and  studious  dwelling  upon  one  class 
of  ideas,  almost  all  men  appropriate  out  of  the 
great  treasury  of  the  language  certain  words 
which  they  make  their  own.  Their  friends  grow 
used  to  hearing  those  words  from  their  lips. 
The  words  become  filled  with  their  personality. 
Some  color  or  shade  or  tone  comes  into  them,  as 
such  a  speaker  habitually  uses  them,  which  indi- 
cates on  which  side  he  has  approached  their 
meaning,  and  they  who  honor  him  can  hardly 
hear  the  words  or  speak  them  without  entering 
into  communion  with  his  spirit. 

If  such  an  habitual  use  of  certain  words  with  cer- 
tain tones  is  true  and  always  fresh,  if  it  does  not 
come  out  of  affectation  and  does  not  degenerate 
into  mannerism,  it  often  gives  us  the  material  for 
u 


210 


The  Influence  of  ^ 


an  excellent  study  of  a  man's  life  and  nature.  If 
he  is  only  real,  we  may  judge  him  by  his  words. 
As  he  speaketh  with  his  mouth  so  is  he.  Tell 
me  what  words  a  man  uses  most,  and  reproduce 
for  me  the  tones  in  which  he  speaks  them,  and  I 
ought  to  be  able  to  tell  you  a  good  deal  about 
what  sort  of  man  he  is.  Count  for  me  the 
favorite  words  of  any  book,  and  give  me  some 
idea  of  the  association  in  which  they  stand,  and 
I  ought  to  know  much  of  the  book's  quality  and 
of  what  influence  it  will  exert  on  those  who 
read  it. 

I  am  to  speak  to-day  of  the  influence  of  Jesus 
upon  intellectual  life,  upon  the  world  of  thought ; 
and  I  know  no  better  way  to  approach  a  sub- 
ject so  interesting,  so  rich,  and  yet,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  in  its  central  point  so  simple,  than  by  ob- 
serving the  prominence  of  one  word  and  the 
very  marked  and  characteristic  way  in  which 
that  word  is  used  in  the  book  which  tells  us 
most  of  what  we  know  about  the  mind  of  Jesus. 
The  book  is  the  Gospel  of  St.  John.  The  word 
is  truth.  It  is  only  in  that  one  book  that  the 
word  is  found  upon  the  lips  of  Jesus  with  any  of 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        211 

that  special  intonation  which  is  peculiarly  His 
own.  There  are  three  other  Gospels,  three 
other  accounts  of  the  Lord's  life,  but  in  neither 
of  them  does  this,  which  is  his  most  characteris- 
tic utterance  in  the  fourth  Gospel,  once  appear. 
I  need  not  pause  to  say  that  such  a  fact  suggests 
no  real  difficulty  or  discrepancy  between  the 
records.  As  different  as  Matthew  and  John 
were  from  each  other,  so  different  must  have 
been  the  words  of  their  Master  which  were 
caught  in  the  memory  and  treasured  in  the  heart 
of  each.  In  the  same  way  in  which  Zenophon 
and  Plato  both  wrote  of  Socrates,  and,  holding 
different  mirrors  on  different  sides  of  that  won- 
derfully interesting  figure,  have  given  us,  not  two 
Socrateses,  but  a  completer  Socrates  than  we 
could  have  had  if  only  one  of  them  had  seen  him 
and  described  him,  so  the  first  Gospel  and  the 
fourth  enlarge  each  other,  and  the  historic  Jesus 
comes  in  the  stereoscopic  fulness  of  His  recorded 
life  and  nature  from  the  two.  But  Plato  is  more 
to  us  than  Zenophon.  The  great  Athenian  lives 
in  the  Dialogues  as  he  does  not  in  the  Memora- 
bilia. And  John  is  more  to  us  than  Matthew, 


212  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

A  word  of  Jesus  constantly  appearing  in  those 
discourses  of  Jesus  which  most  impressed  the 
most  sympathetic  and  spiritual  of  his  disciples 
will,  if  we  can  see  what  He  meant  by  it,  admit 
us  very  deeply  into  His  heart  and  will.  Such  a 
word  is  truth,  as  it  is  used  by  Jesus  constantly 
in  the  Gospel  of  St.  John. 

The  word,  then,  is  distinctly  a  word  of  the 
intellect.  Whatever  other  elements  may  enter 
in,  however  it  may  enlarge  itself  and  become  a 
word  of  the  entire  nature,  the  intellectual  element 
can  never  be  cast  out  of  it.  He  whose  favorite 
word  is  truth  must  be  a  man  who  values  intel- 
lectual life,  who  is  not  satisfied  unless  his  own 
intellect  is  living,  and  who  conceives  of  his  fellow- 
men  as  beings  in  whom  the  intellect  is  an  impor- 
tant and  valuable  part.  This  must  belong  to  any 
habitual  use  of  the  word  at  all ;  and  so,  when 
we  find  it  appearing  constantly  upon  the  lips  of 
Jesus,  in  the  record  of  that  one  of  His  disciples 
who  understood  Him  best,  we  feel  that  we  know 
this  at  least  about  Him,  —  that  He  cared  for  the 
intellect  of  man,  that  He  desired  to  exercise 
some  influence  upon  it,  that  He  was  not  satisfied 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        213 

simply  to  win  man's  affection  by  His  kindness, 
nor  to  govern  man's  will  by  His  authority,  but 
that  He_also  wished  to  persuade   man's   mind~ 
with  truth. 

But  we  must  know  something  more  of  what 
a  man's  conception  about  truth  is  before  we  can 
see  what  sort  of  influence  he  will  exert  upon 
men's  intellects.  Take  Martin  Luther's  idea  of 
truth,  and  Professor  Huxley's  idea,  and  Mr. 
Emerson's  idea.  How  evident  it  is  that  the 
same  word  would  be  spoken  in  distinguishably 
different  tones,  and  would  strike  with  different 
force  upon  the  hearer's  ears  and  character  as 
it  came  from  three  such  different  men.  And 
so  it  is  not  enough  that  we  should  know  the 
fact  that  Jesus  constantly  talked  of  truth.  That 
would  assure  us  that  He  sought  an  intellectual 
influence.  We  must  also  know  what  He  meant 
by  truth,  and  how  He  spoke  of  it.  That  will 
reveal  to  us  what  kind  of  intellectual  influence 
it  was  that  He  desired.  Let  us  turn  then  to 
some  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus  concerning  truth. 
And,  as  we  look  at  them,  remember  it  is  not  the 
essential  importance  of  what  He  says  that  we 


214  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

want  to  dwell  on,  but  merely  the  indication  in 
His  saying  of  what  He  means  by  truth,  of  which 
He  speaks  so  much.  On  one  occasion,  when  He 
had  been  speaking  very  powerfully  about  His 
own  personal  relation  to  His  Father,  a  great 
many  of  His  hearers  were  persuaded  and  be- 
lieved on  Him.  Then  Jesus  said  to  those  Jews 
that  believed  on  Him,  "  If  ye  continue  in  My 
word,  then  are  ye  My  disciples  indeed  ;  and  }  • 
shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make 
you  jree."  That  puzzled  them.  It  stirred  their 
Jewish  blood.  They  told  Him  that  they  were 
born  of  Abraham,  and  were  no  man's  slaves. 
"  How  sayest  Thou,  Ye  shall  be  made  free  ? " 
And  Jesus  answered  them, "  Truly  I  say  unto  you, 
every  man  that  committeth  sin  is  the  servant  of 
sin."  That  was  the  freedom  that  His  truth  was 
to  bring,  —  a  spiritual  freedom,  a  freedom  from 
wickedness,  an  untwisting  of  the  tight  cords 
from  their  hold  on  the  personal  nature.  Truth 
was  something  which,  when  it  came,  would  set 
the  whole  man  free.  By  and  by,  in  the  same 
talk,  He  warmed  into  earnest  pity  not  unmixed 
with  indignation.  Poor  people  !  there  they  stood 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        215 

before  Him,  and  would  not,  could  not,  under- 
stand the  things  He  said  to  them.  Would  not 
and  could  not  were  all  mixed  together.  But 
His  indignation  reaches  back  behind  them.  It 
cannot  stop  short  of  the  Evil  Spirit  who  is  their 
deluder.  "  Ye  are  of  your  father  the  Devil,  ana 
the  lusts  of  your  father  ye  will  do.  He  was  a 
liar  from  the  beginning  and  abode  not  in  the 
truth."  Again,  see  what  a  moral  thing  the 
truth  is.  He  who  does  not  abide  in  it  is  not 
merely  a  doubter,  not  merely  a  disbeliever,  he 
is  a  liar.  The  truth  is  truthfulness.  The  sub- 
jective and  objective  lose  themselves  in  one 
another.  Then  let  the  whole  strain  change. 
The  warm  discussion,  the  earnest  indignation, 
is  long  past  and  over.  Jesus  is  sitting  with  the 
men  who  loved  Him  in  the  quiet  atmosphere  of 
the  Last  Supper.  A  question  of  one  of  the 
disciples  drew  from  Him  the  words  which  per- 
haps have  fascinated  and  mysteriously  fed  as 
many  souls  as  any  words  He  ever  spoke.  "I 
am  the  Way,  and  the  Truth,  and  the  Life,"  He 
said.  "  I  am  the  Truth."  We  must  have  some 
notion  of  what  truth  meant  to  Him  which  shall 


?i6  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

be  large  enough  to  contain  those  words.  A  truth 
which  a  man  could  be ;  a  truth  which  could  sum 
up  and  consist  of  personal  qualities.  Evidently 
it  is  not  mere  fact,  this  truth  of  His  ;  not  some- 
thing merely  done,  merely  made,  and  standing 
finished  and  recognizable,  to  be  walked  around 
and  measured  and  studied  on  the  outside  by  any 
patient  eye.  It  is  something  living,  something 
ever  taking  shape,  something  spiritual,  and  to 
be  known  only  from  the  inside  by  spiritual  sym- 
pathy. The  evening  passed  on,  and  by  and  by 
Jesus  began  to  unfold  to  His  disciples  the  prom- 
ise of  what  He  would  do  for  them  even  after  He 
had  left  them.  He  is  going  to  send  them  the 
Comforter,  He  says.  And  this  Comforter,  when 
He  is  come,  is  to  "  reprove  the  world  of  sin,  of 
righteousness,  and  of  judgment."  Deep  words, 
and  full  of  meaning,  much  of  which  we  have  not 
fathomed  yet.  But  this,  at  least,  we  know  is  in 
them.  It  is  a  spiritual  helper  who  is  coming ; 
a  soul  coming  to  help  souls ;  a  moral  mastei 
who  shall  judge  and  rule  the  moral  life.  And 
so  when  in  a  minute  Jesus,  as  He  goes  on  speak- 
ing, gives  this  Comforter  another  name,  and  says, 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        217 

"  When  He,  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  is  come,  He  will 
lead  you  into  all  truth,"  we  know  again  that 
truth  cannot  mean  in  Him  merely  objective 
verity ;  it  must  have  in  it  the  elements  of  char- 
acter, since  the  leading  of  man  into  it  by  the 
Divine  soul  is  to  be  the  perfection  of  man's  life. 
The  evening  wears  on  still,  and  by  and  by  Jesus 
has  ceased  to  speak  directly  to  His  friends.  His 
voice  is  heard  in  prayer.  And  in  His  prayer 
there  comes  what  we  may  almost  call  His  sum- 
ming up  and  report  of  all  His  life  to  His  Father. 
"  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  Myself,  that  they 
also  might  be  sanctified  through  the  truth,"  He 
says.  It  is  His  own  character  through  which 
alone  truth  can  come  to  make  character  in  His 
disciples.  It  is  the  deep  and  satisfied  declara- 
tion that  His  whole  life  had  been  given  to  seek- 
ing the  fulfilment  of  the  petition  which  He  had 
just  offered,  "  Sanctify  them  through  Thy  truth." 
The  same  crowded  night  slowly  creeps  away, 
and  in  the  morning  everything  is  once  more 
altered.  Jesus  is  standing  before  Pilate.  And 
as  the  strange  interview  goes  on,  He  has  once 
more  occasion  to  declare  the  sum  and  purpose 


218  The  Influence  of  jfestts 

I 
of  His  life.      "  To   this   end  was   I   born,"    lie 

says,  "  and  for  this  cause  came  I  into  the  world, 
that  I  should  bear  witness  to  the  truth.  Every 
one  that  is  of  the  truth  heareth  My  voice." 
"  Every  man  of  the  truth."  Again  you  see  how 
the  air  grows  hazy  with  the  meeting  of  the 
subjective  and  objective  conceptions.  They  are 
words  of  character.  A  "  man  of  the  truth  "  is 
something  more  than  a  man  who  knows  the  truth, 
whose  intellect  has  seized  it ;  that,  we  are  sure, 
would  be  the  very  tamest  paraphrase  of  the  sug- 
gestive words.  It  would  take  the  whole  life  and 
depth  out  of  them.  A  "  man  of  the  truth  "  is  a 
man  into  all  whose  life  the  truth  has  been  pressed 
till  he  is  full  of  it,  till  he  has  been  given  to  it, 
and  it  has  been  given  to  him,  he  being  always 
the  complete  being  whose  unity  is  in  that  total 
of  moral,  intellectual,  and  spiritual  life  which 
makes  what  we  call  character.  He  is  the  man 
of  whom  Pilate's  prisoner  said,  "  He  hears  my 
voice."  No  wonder  that  Pilate,  hearing  a  new 
sound  in  an  old  familiar  word,  felt  all  his  old 
questions  stir  again  within  him,  and  asked  with 
an  interest  which  was  too  weary  to  be  called  a 
hope,  "  What  is  truth  ? " 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        219 

These  passages  will  show  how  the  word  truth 
sounds  when  Jesus  says  it.  I  have  not  hesitated 
to  multiply  them,  because  out  of  them  all  comes 
forth,  I  think,  a  perfectly  clear  conception  of 
what  the  intellectual  life  was  in  Jesus.  The 
great  fact  concerning  it  is  this,  that  in  Him  the 
intellect  never  works  alone.  You  never  can 
separate  its  workings  from  the  complete  opera- 
tion of  the  whole  nature.  He  never  simply 
knows,  but  always  loves  and  resolves  at  the 
same  time.  Truth  which  the  mind  discovers 
becomes  immediately  the  possession  of  the  af- 
fections and  the  will.  It  cannot  remain  in  the 
condition  of  mere  knowledge.  Indeed,  knowl- 
edge is  no  word  of  Jesus.  Solomon  in  the  Book 
of  Proverbs  is  always  talking  about  knowledge. 
Jesus,  in  the  Gospel  of  John,  is  always  talking 
about  truth.  So  genuine  is  the  unity  of  His 
being,  that  what  comes  to  Him  as  knowledge 
is  pressed  and  gathered  into  every  part  of  Him, 
and  fills  His  entire  nature  as  truth.  The  rays 
of  intellectual  light  are  absorbed  into  the  whole 
substance  of  the  spontaneous  affections  and  the 
unerring  will.  The  rig '  t  and  the  true,  the  wrong 


22O  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

and  the  false,  are  not  separable  from  one  another. 
The  life  is  simple  because  of  its  completeness. 
It  is  the  true  unity  of  a  man. 

When  we  see  how  constantly  it  is  the  crudity 
of  an  unappropriated,  unassimilated  intellectual- 
ity that  disappoints  us  in  intellectual  people; 
when  we  find  ourselves  turning  away  from  many 
a  learned  man  whose  knowledge  has  not  been 
pressed  into  character ;  when  we  find  that  the 
action  of  the  intellect  forcing  itself  upon  our 
notice  because  it  is  working  out  of  proportion  to 
or  out  of  harmony  with  the  other  parts  of  a  man's 
nature,  his  conscience,  his  affections,  and  his 
active  powers,  always  dissatisfies  and  makes  us 
restless,  and,  with  all  the  interest  which  we  may 
feel  in  him,  does  not  let  us  think  that  we  have 
found  the  fullest  and  most  perfect  man,  — when 
we  see  all  this,  it  becomes  clear  to  us  what  a 
distinguishing  thing  in  Jesus  was  this  unity  of 
life  in  which  the  special  action  of  the  intellect 
was  lost.  We  catch  something  of  the  spirit 
with  which  His  disciple,  fondly  recurring  years 
afterwards  to  the  bright  days  when  He  first  knew 
Jesus,  twice  used  the  same  description  of  Him: 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        221 

"The  word  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us, 
full  of  grace  and  truth."  "  The  law  was  given  by 
Moses,  but  by  Jesus  Christ  came  grace  and  truth*" 
We  have  only  to  dwell  upon  men's  best  con- 
ception of  a  Deity  to  see  how  distinct  and  how 
lofty  this  conception  of  intellectuality  is  which 
the  life  of  Jesus  sets  be/ore  us.  The  partialness 
which  we  see  in  man,  and  which  lets  us  easily 
divide  our  fellow-men  into  classes  and  label 
them  the  men  of  intellect  or  the  men  of  action, 
passes  away  as  we  mount  to  any  thought  of  God 
which  is  at  all  worthy  of  Him.  What  God 
knows  is  one  and  the  same  with  the  love  with 
which  He  loves  and  the  resolve  with  which  He 
wills.  You  cannot  draw  a  fence  through  the 
great  ocean  of  infinity.  Mythology  dreams  of 
its  many  gods  with  many  functions.  The  mo- 
ment that  one  God  stands  forth  above  all  gods, 
the  many  things  which  the  partial  deities  do  lose 
themselves  in  the  one  perfect  thing  which  the 
one  only  Deity  is.  And  all  wisdom  unites 
with  all  power  and  all  love  no  less  in  the  guid- 
ing of  a  little  child  along  the  slippery  path 
which  leads  to  manhood,  than  in  the  vast  con- 


222  The  Influence  of  Jesus 


duct  of  the   destinies  of  the  colossal  man  who 
lives  through  all  the  generations  of  the  race. 

We  need  only  to  think  of  the  kind  of  human 
creature  who  has  always  most  easily  commanded 
the  instinctive  admiration  of  his  brethren,  and 
we  shall  see  that  the  same  character  reappears  in 
him.  It  is  not  the  intellectual  man  as  such,  not 
the  man  in  whom  intellect  stands  crudely  forth 
as  the  controlling  element  in  life,  that  other  men 
are  drawn  to  most.  The  greatest  men  that  ever 
lived  are  those  in  whom  you  cannot  separate  the 
mental  and  moral  lives.  YOM  cannot  say  just 
what  part  of  their  power  and  success  is  due  to  a 
good  heart  and  what  to  a  sound  understanding. 
And  in  every  circle  there  are  apt  to  appear  some 
persons  of  great  influence  and  great  attractive- 
ness, of  whom  you  never  think  as  being  specially 
intellectual.  If  any  one  calls  them  intellectual, 
it  startles  you ;  but  as  you  think  about  your 
wonder,  you  discover  that  it  does  not  come  from 
an  absence  of  the  intellectual  life  in  those  who 
are  thus  spoken  of,  but  from  the  fact  that  the 
intellectual  part  of  them  is  so  blended  and  lost 
in  the  rounded  and  symmetrical  unity  of  their 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        223 

life  that  you  have  never  been  led  to  think  of  it 
by  itself.  All  this  is  very  frequently  true  con: 
earning  women,  whose  unity  of  life  is  often  more 
apparent  than  is  that  of  men. 

Again,  the   superiority  of  this  sort  of  life   is 
seen  in  the  instinctive  way  with  which  men  seek 
to  produce  it  in  their  systems  of  education  for  the 
young.     In  the  family  and  in  the  school  parents 
and  teachers  whose   own    ambitions  are  purely 
and  hardly  intellectual  will  rarely  seek  for  chil- 
dren so  narrow  an  existence  as  they  are  prac- 
tically seeking   for   themselves.     All    men   who 
have  anything  to  do  with  education  are  drawn 
irresistibly  into  the  valuing  of  character.     They 
cannot  disregard   subjective  life.      They  cannot 
sow  seed  over  the  fallow  ground  till  they  have 
first  made  it  fertile  with  right  emotion.     And,  on 
the  other  hand,   the  intellectual  culture  of  the 
race,  strong  as  the  motives  are  that  incite  men  to 
it  for  its  own  sake,  could  probably  never  main- 
tain its  ground  and  keep  the  enthusiastic  interest 
of  the  best  and  wisest  men  if,  in  spite  of  count- 
1<  ss  disappointments,  it  were  not  clearly  seen  to 
1  tve,  upon  the  whole,  a  olose  connection  with 


224  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

men's   moral   conditions    and    the    symmetrical 
completeness  of  their  lives. 

But  perhaps  what  I  am  urging  is  seen  most 
clearly  if  we  watch  the  change  which  conies  to 
all  our  natures  in  their  loftiest,  which  are  their 
truest,  moods.  The  best  study  of  essential  hu- 
man nature  is  to  be  found,  not  in  the  exceptional 
men  who  stand  out  distinct  above  their  fellows, 
nor  in  the  ordinary  man  in  his  ordinary  moments, 
when  the  fire  of  his  life  burns  low,  but  in  those 
states  which  come  to  all  healthily  susceptible 
human  natures,  in  which  their  powers  are  most 
active  with  the  least  distortion,  —  times  of  exalta- 
tion, in  which  the  exalted  man  is  conscious  that 
he  is  not  transported  out  of  himself,  but  is  simply 
realizing  himself  in  a  supreme  degree.  And  one 
of  the  characteristics  of  such  times  of  healthy 
exaltation  is  the  manifest  unity  of  the  life,  and 
especially  the  way  in  which  intellectual  action, 
without  being  quenched,  nay,  burning  at  its  very 
brightest,  blends  with  the  quickened  activity  of 
all  the  being,  and  is  not  even  thought  of  by  it- 
self. A  time  of  heroic  sacrifice  brings  quick  per- 
ceptions, which  yet  the  hero  has  no  time  to  dwelJ 


On  tlie  Intettectnal  Life  of  Man.        225 

upon  with  pride  before  they  are  lost  in  the  tor- 
rent of  rich  impulses  which  is  sweeping  through 
his  life.  The  days  when  death  comes  near  our 
life  with  that  freedom  and  refinement  which  it 
always  tries  to  bring,  are  days  in  which  we  think 
the  truest  and  profoundest  thoughts  about  the 
overpowering  mystery  ;  but  it  is  so  much  else  to 
us  then  besides  a  thing  to  think  about,  —  it  is 
something  so  much  nearer  and  greater  than  a 
problem  of  the  brain,  —  that  we  hardly  know 
that  we  are  thinking  about  it  at  all.  So  love  and 
hope  and  joy  and  indignation  and  fervent  admi- 
ration for  a  noble  man,  and  any  sudden  sight  of 
our  own  best  possibilities,  —  all  of  these  are  con- 
ditions in  which  the  intellect  works  vigorously, 
but  it  works  in  the  midst  of  a  being  all  quickened 
and  exalted  together,  and  so  it  is  lost  in  th*;  large 
action  of  the  whole.  "  He  who  does  not  lose  his 
reason  in  certain  things,"  says  Lessing, "  has  none 
to  lose."  But  the  reason  is  lost,  not  by  any  palsy 
or  death  that  falls  on  it,  but  by  the  vehement 
life  of  will  and  affections,  among  which  the  life 
of  the  reason  takes  its  true  place  as  but  one 
member  of  the  perfect  whole. 
15 


226  The  Influence  of  y 


There  is  a  noble  passage  of  Wordsworth  which 
tells  this  same  story,  and  shows  how  under  the 
greatest  influences  of  nature  the  same  rich  blend- 
ing of  the  life  takes  place.  He  is  describing  the 
consecrating  effects  of  early  dawn  :  — 

"  What  soul  was  his  when  from  the  naked  top 
Of  some  bold  headland  he  beheld  the  sun 
Rise  up  and  bathe  the  world  in  light.     He  looked  — 
Ocean  and  earth,  the  solid  frame  of  earth 
And  ocean's  liquid  mass,  beneath  him  lay 
In  gladness  and  deep  joy.     The  clouds  were  touched 
And  in  their  silent  faces  did  he  read 
Unutterable  love.     Sound  needed  not 
Nor  any  voice  of  joy  ;  his  spirit  drank 
The  spectacle  ;  sensation,  soul,  and  form 
All  melted  into  him.     They  swallowed  up 
His  animal  being  ;  in  them  did  he  live 
And  by  them  did  he  live.     They  were  his  life. 
In  such  access  of  mind,  in  such  high  hour 
Of  visitation  from  the  Living  God, 
Thought  was  not  ;  in  enjoyment  it  expired. 
No  thanks  he  breathed,  he  proffered  no  request  ; 
Rapt  into  still  communion  that  transcends 
The  imperfect  offices  of  prayer  and  praise, 
His  mind  was  a  thanksgiving  to  the  Power 
That  made  him  ;  it  was  blessedness  and  love  !  ** 

I  must  not  dwell  longer  on  these  illustrations. 
This  fact,  so  abundantly  set  forth  in  our  own 
best  experiences,  is  the  fact  that  fills  and  ex- 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.         227 

./Yi 
plain?    the  intellectual    history  of  Jesus.      The 

"mind  of  Christ,"  of  which  one  of  His  followers 
spoke  years  afterwards,  is  mingled  and  lost  in 
the  completeness  of  His  life  ;  and  that  com- 
pleteness, to  take  one  step  farther,  is  represented 
to  Himself  by  the  obedience  which  He  owed 
and  always  rendered  to  His  Father.  The  unity 
of  life  is  rescued  from  vagueness  and  made  a  true 
reality  to  Jesus  by  the  one  enveloping  relation 
to  God  which  comprehends  it  all.  We  shall  un- 
derstand that,  I  think,  if  we  turn  again  to  the 
unique  and  precious  story  in  which  is  told  us  all 
that  we  know  about  the  boyhood  of  Jesus.  The 
child  of  twelve  years  old  finds  his  way  back  to 
the  Temple,  where  the  sacredness  of  life  and 
the  connection  of  man  with  God  had  for  the 
first  time  been  set  forth  before  Him  in  ceremo- 
nial richness.  He  cannot  turn  His  back  upon 
the  wonderful,  delightful  place.  He  cannot  go 
quietly  down  into  Galilee,  and  leave  the  Temple, 
which  is  radiant  with  knowledge  and  holiness, 
behind  Him.  We  must  remember  that  the 
Temple  was  indeed  the  centre  of  knowledge  for 
the  Jews.  There  sat  the  doctors.  There  the 


228  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

law  was  taught.  When  Jesus,  then,  tarried  in 
Jerusalem  and  clung  about  the  Temple  courts, 
it  was  the  craving  after  knowledge,  it  was  that 
sweet,  vague  outlook  into  vast  cloud-swept  fields 
of  possible  intelligence,  which  makes  the  poetry 
of  every  pure  boy's  life  to-day,  —  it  was  this  lofty 
wish  to  know,  that  kept  Him  -there.  But  when 
His  parents  came  back  and  found  Him,  and 
when,  with  a  boy's  directness  and  a  boy's  ab- 
sorption in  the  present  task,  He  looked  up  at 
them  in  surprise,  as  if  it  were  a  wonderful  thing 
that  any  one  should  think  He  could  be  doing 
anything  but  just  what  He  was  doing  then, 
and  answered,  "  Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be 
about  My  Father's  business  ? "  it  was  an  answer 
of  obedience  ;  all  alive  with  thought ;  yet,  when 
He  stated  the  purpose  of  His  life,  it  was  not 
thought,  but  duty.  The  intellectual  activity  was 
held  in  the  bosom  of  an  obedience  which  made 
the  boy's  life  a  unit.  Out  of  that  obedience  the 
intellectual  activity  received  its  impulse,  and  to 
the  more  and  more  complete  fulfilment  of  that 
obedience  it  contributed  its  results. 

Thus  the  character  of  the  intellectual  life  of 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        229 

Jesus  was  indicated  at  the  very  start.  We  have 
only  to  look  at  some  of  the  striking  moments  of 
His  mental  experience,  to  see  how  that  character 
ran  through  them  all.  There  is  much  that  might 
be  said  about  the  Temptation,  —  that  mysterious 
experience  in  the  wilderness  with  which  His 
early  life  of  contemplation  passed  over  into  the 
later  life  of  action.  All  that  I  point  out  to  you 
now  is  this,  —  that,  while  it  is  evident  that  in 
those  terrible  hours  the  whole  nature  of  Jesus 
was  submitted  to  a  fearful  struggle,  and  that, 
as  not  the  least  among  the  elements  that  made 
up  the  ordeal,  His  intellectual  judgments  were 
shaken,  His  knowledge  of  truth  was  invaded  by 
tumultuous  doubt,  His  sight  of  His  Father  was 
obscured,  —  yet,  at  the  last,  and  as  the  sum  of 
all,  the  question  was  not  one  of  intelligence  but 
of  will.  It  was  a  choice  of  obediences  that  made 
the  real  crisis.  It  was  the  rejection  of  Satan's 
"  Fall  down  and  worship  me,"  and  the  clear 
acceptance  of  "  Thou  shalt  serve  the  Lord  Thy 
God,"  that  marked  the  victory.  "  Then  the 
Devil  leaveth  Him,  and  behold  angels  came 
and  ministered  unto  Him."  The  moment  that 


230  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

the  obedience  of  the  life  was  established,  the 
mental  tumult  settled  into  peace  within  it. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  career  of  Jesus  the 
same  thing  was  seen.  In  the  Garden  of  Geth- 
semane  reason  seemed  to  totter  on  her  throne. 
For  the  last  time  the  desperate  hands  had  to 
cling  to  the  truth  in  instant  fear.  But  there, 
too,  it  is  not  by  the  direct  conviction  of  the 
reason  ;  it  is  by  the  adjustment  of  the  whole 
life  in  obedience  —  to  which,  no  doubt,  the  rea- 
son gave  its  assent,  but  which  was  a  transaction 
far  beyond  the  reason's  limits  —  that  the  trem- 
bling reason  finds  composure.  When  He  said, 
•'  Thy  will  be  done,"  all  the  obscurity  began  to 
scatter,  and  those  words  which  He  said  four 
days  later,  after  He  had  risen,  to  His  disciples, 
"Ought  not  Christ  to  have  suffered  these  things  ?" 
—  words  with  the  echo  in  them  of  the  same  sur- 
prise with  which  He  long  before  spoke  to  His 
parents  in  the  Temple,  —  words  full  of  the  peace 
of  satisfied  intelligence,  —  began  to  take  shape 
upon  His  lips. 

It  is  a  poor  and  pitiable  life  indeed  that  can- 
not understand  in  some  degree,  out  of  its  own 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        231 

history,  this  experience  of  the  Temptation  and 
of  Gethsemane.  Who  of  us  has  not  bowed  his 
will  to  some  supreme  law,  accepted  some  obe- 
dience as  the  atmosphere  in  which  his  life  must 
live,  and  found  at  once  that  his  mind's  darkness 
turned  to  light,  and  that  many  a  hard  ques- 
tion found  its  answer  ?  Who  has  not  sometimes 
seemed  to  see  it  all  as  clear  as  daylight,  that 
not  by  the  sharpening  of  the  intellect  to  super 
natural  acuteness,  but  by  the  submission  of  the 
nature  to  its  true  authority,  man  was  at  last  to 
conquer  truth  ;  that  not  by  agonizing  struggles 
over  contradictory  evidence,  but  by  the  har- 
mony with  Him  in  whom  the  answers  to  all  our 
doubts  are  folded,  a  harmony  with  Him  brought 
by  obedience  to  Him,  our  doubts  must  be  en- 
lightened ? 

But  to  return  to  Jesus,  I  think  we  have  in 
what  we  have  been  saying  the  best  light  that 
we  can  get  upon  the  method  of  His  inspiration 
by  His  Father,  and  so,  by  inference,  upon  the 
method  of  all  the  inspiration  of  the  holy  men 
who  spoke  for  God.  When  I  hear  Jesus  say, 
"  As  My  Father  hath  taught  Me  I  speak  these 


232  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

things ;  and  He  that  sent  Me  is  with  Me :  the 
Father  hath  not  left  Me  alone  ;  for  I  do  always 
those  things  that  please  Him,"  I  cannot  be  sur- 
prised as  I  read  on  to  the  next  verse  and  find 
that  "As  He  spake  those  words  many  believed 
on  Him."  For  the  words  made  the  breadth  and 
depth  of  His  inspiration  plain.  At  the  base  of 
it  all  lay  His  obedience :  "  For  I  do  always  those 
things  that  please  Him."  Out  of  that  obedience 
came  continual  communion.  "He  that  sent  Me 
is  with  Me.  The  Father  hath  not  left  Me  alone." 
And  to  the  spirit  lying  close  in  that  communion 
to  the  Father's  spirit,  to  the  soul  of  the  Son 
lying  in  its  completeness  on  the  soul  of  the 
Father,  came  the  wisdom  of  the  Father  to  be 
given  to  the  world.  What  did  they  think  of 
the  next  truth  that  Jesus  uttered  after  He  had 
thus  explained  Himself?  Did  it  seem  to  them 
something  which  He  by  unusual  penetration  had 
discovered  ?  Did  it  seem  to  them  a  single,  sepa- 
rate message,  apart  from  all  other  communica- 
tion, told  by  God  to  Jesus  to  be  told  to  them  ? 
They  must  have  understood  Him  better  than 
that.  They  must  have  known  that,  however  the 


On  I  he  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        233 

intelligence  of  Jesus  had  been  illuminated  to  know 
this  special  truth,  that  special  illumination  of  the 
intelligence  was  subordinate  to  and  included  in 
the  consecration  of  the  whole  life  by  obedience  ; 
that  in  whatever  sense  Jesus  knew  this  because 
God  told  Him,  He  never  could  have  been  told 
if  underneath  all  the  communication  between 
Him  and  His  Father  it  had  not  been  true  at 
the  base  of  everything  that  He  and  His  Father 
were  one.  I  cannot  conceive  of  the  true  hearer 
of  Jesus  losing  that  large  thought  of  His  Lord's 
inspiration  ever  again.  Not  a  mere  message- 
bringer  could  He  ever  seem  ;  but  the  eternal 
truth  manifest  first  in  character  before  it  pre- 
sented itself  in  specific  revelation  ;  the  Word  of 
God,  in  which  and  by  which  the  words  of  God 
through  Him  gained  their  authority  and  value. 

Once  or  twice  Jesus  declares  with  perfect 
frankness  the  limits  of  His  knowledge.  There 
are  some  things  which  He  does  not  know.  "  Of 
that  day  and  hour  knoweth  not  the  Son,"  He 
says,  "  but  the  Father."  What  does  it  mean  ? 
The  ancient  oracle  or  the  modern  fortune-teller 
could  not  dD  that  and  yet  keep  men's  faith. 


234  The  Influence  of  Jesns 

They  have  no  self,  no  character  behind  their 
words.  Men  do  not  believe  properly  in  them, 
but  only  in  their  words.  But  Jesus  always  is 
behind  His  words.  "  Ye  believe  not,"  He  said 
once  to  the  Jews,  "  because  ye  are  not  of  My 
sheep."  He  must  possess  men  before  His  words 
could  take  possession  of  them.  We  must  believe 
Him  inspired,  see  Him  full  of  God,  before  we 
can  believe  His  words  inspired,  and  see  them 
burn  with  truth.  Not  from  simple  brain  to 
simple  brain,  as  the  reasoning  of  Euclid  comes 
to  its  students,  but  from  total  character  to  total 
character,  comes  the  New  Testament  from  God 
to  men. 

If  we  turn  now  from  the  thought  of  Christ's 
^  own  intellectual  life  to  think  of  the  immediate 
influence  which  He  exercised  upon  His  disciples, 
I  do  not  know  how  to  approach  that  part  of  our 
subject  better  than  through  the  medium  of  an 
analogy  which  must  be  suggested  to  any  one 
who  thoughtfully  reads  the  record  of  Jesus  along 
with  the  record  of  that  only  one  among  purely 
human  teachers  whom  Christian  men  have  ever 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        235 

ventured  to  compare  with  Him.  No  one  can 
read  the  Gospel  of  St.  John  and  then  turn  to 
what  is  left  us  of  the  life  of  Socrates,  without 
being  struck  and  almost  startled  with  the  sug- 
gested comparison  between  the  account  of  Christ's 
last  talk  with  His  disciples  before  His  crucifixion, 
which  is  given  in  five  chapters  of  that  Gospel, 
and  the  beautiful  story  of  what  Socrates  said  to 
Simmias  and  Cebes  and  his  other  friends  in  the 
prison  at  Athens  just  before  he  drank  the  hem- 
lock, -  -the  story  which  Plato  has  written  for  us 
in  the  Phaedo.  And  nowhere  could  the  essential 
difference  as  well  as  the  likeness  of  fhe  two 
great  teachers  become  more  apparent.  Nowhere 
could  the  critics  who  loosely  class  Jesus  and  Soc- 
rates together  see  more  distinctly  where  their 
classification  fails,  where  the  line  runs  beyond 
which  Socrates  cannot  go,  beyond  which  the 
nature  of  Jesus  sweeps  out  of  our  sight. 

I  should  like  to  dwell  for  a  few  moments  on 
this  comparison.  The  story  in  St.  John  is  famil- 
,ar  enough.  The  points  in  the  story  which  Plato 
tells  I  may  venture  to  recall  to  you.  The  two 
may  stand  in  our  imagination  side  by  side.  And 


236  Tht   Influence  of  Jesus 

in  their  mere  details  there  is  much  that  suggests 
comparison.  The  quiet  upper  chamber  at  Jeru- 
salem where  the  young  man  sits  with  His  young 
companions  at  the  simple  supper,  where  vener- 
able traditions  blend  with  the  joy  of  present 
companionship  and  the  pain  of  coming  separa- 
tion, is  set  off  against  the  rugged  prison  open- 
ing upon  the  Agora  at  Athens,  where,  in  the 
inner  chamber,  the  friends  of  Socrates  have 
come  to  talk  with  him  once  more  before  he  dies. 
The  old  man  sits  on  the  bed  at  first,  with  his  leg 
drawn  up,  rubbing  the  spot  from  which  the  fetter 
had  just  been  taken  off  preparatory  to  his  death. 
The  relief  that  he  feels  in  his  leg  opens  his  talk 
with  a  remark  upon  the  strange  connection  be- 
tween pain  and  pleasure.  By  and  by  he  drops 
his  feet  upon  the  floor,  and  so  sits  on  the  bed- 
side, calmly  talking.  Once  he  drops  his  hand 
affectionately  upon  the  head  of  Phaedo,  as  if  he, 
too,  would  have  a  "  disciple  whom  he  loved,"  and 
draw  one  trusting  heart  closer  to  him  than  the 
rest.  His  wife  comes  in  to  him  with  their  three 
boys,  and  he  talks  with  them  kindly,  but  there 
is  no  tenderness,  and  after  a  little  while  he  bids 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        237 

them  to  be  taken  away,  for  they  evidently  trouble 
him.  The  humor  that  had  played  through  all 
his  life  is  with  him  to  the  last.  Once  he  makes 
a  pun.  And  at  the  very  end,  when  the  disciples 
asked  him  how  they  should  bury  him,  he  bids 
them  bury  him  what  way  they  will,  "  if  only  you 
can  catch  me  and  I  do  not  give  you  the  slip  "  ; 
and  as  he  speaks,  he  gently  smiles  to  see  how 
lightly  all  that  he  has  been  saying  has  sunk  into 
them,  and  to  fancy  these  clumsy  affectionate 
Athenians  chasing  his  fleeting  spirit  to  cage  it 
in  a  tomb.  Once  comes  a  message  from  the 
executioner  to  tell  him  about  the  poison  he  will 
have  to  drink,  which  is  a  sharp,  violent  note, 
intruding  on  the  music  of  his  thought,  that  some- 
how reminds  us  of  the  departure  of  Judas  from 
the  Passover  table.  For  an  instant  the  coming 
woe  starts  up  dramatically  real.  There  is  one 
beautiful  moment  when  the  disciples  are  half 
convinced,  but  still  frightened  and  trembling. 
Socrates  sees  it  in  their  faces,  and  tells 
them  of  it.  And  Cebes  answers,  "  Well,  Soc- 
rates, suppose  that  we  are  frightened  ;  do  you 
encourage  and  comfort  us.  Or  rather,  suppose 


238  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

not  that  we  are  frightened,  but  that  there  is  a 
child  within  us  who  is  so."  And  Socrates  play- 
fully takes  up  the  pretty  thought.  "  Ah,  yes," 
he  says,  "  we  must  find  some  charm  that  we  can 
sing  over  this  frightened  child  to  quiet  him,"  and 
so  he  goes  on  with  his  talk  again.  The  words 
in  which  Phaedo  afterwards  recalls  the  impression 
that  his  master's  presence  made  on  him  that  day 
might  almost  have  been  on  the  lips  of  John.  "  I 
had  no  painful  feeling  of  pity,  as  might  seem 
natural  to  a  person  present  at  such  a  catastrophe, 
nor  did  I  feel  a  pleasure  as  on  ordinary  occasions 
when  we  talked  philosophy,  though  the  dis- 
course was  of  the  same  kind.  It  was  a  peculiar 
feeling  that  possessed  me,  a  strange  mixture  of 
pleasure  and  grief,  when  I  thought  that  he 
would  soon  cease  to  be."  All  through  the  con- 
versation we  can  hear  the  religious  festival  in 
which  the  Athenians  are  engaged  outside,  to  cele- 
brate the  return  of  the  sacred  ship  from  Delos, 
—  the  Passover,  as  it  were,  of  the  Athenian  life. 
At  last,  without  a  shock,  continuing  the  calm  and 
peaceful  teaching  to  the  last,  the  great  man  takes 
the  cup  and  drinks  the  poison,  and  all  is  over 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        239 

There  lies  his  body  before  them,  more  eloquent 
in  silence  than  any  of  the  words  he  said. 

And  now  what  was  it  that  they  talked  about  on 
that  last  day  ?  The  discussion  hovered  and  flut- 
tered a  little  at  first  before  it  settled  to  its  work ; 
but  it  soon  became  a  sustained  argument  for  im- 
mortality. It  is  very  hard  to  think  that  this  man 
is  just  going  to  die,  and  knows  it,  who  sits  here 
calmly  arguing  that  the  soul  must  be  immortal. 
And  what  were  his  arguments  ?  Really,  they 
were  three.  The  first  was  the  distinctness  be- 
tween the  soul  and  the  body,  as  testified  by  what 
was  the  favorite  doctrine  of  Socrates,  —  the  soul's 
pre-existence.  If  the  soul  existed  before  the 
body,  it  surely  might  outlive  it.  Nay,  it  must  be 
ready  for  the  other  bodies  which  are  waiting  foi 
it.  In  support  of  this  belief  he  dwells  upon  his 
theory  of  recollection  to  account  for  the  presence 
of  ideas  in  man  which  man  never  cc  ild  have  ac- 
quired by  the  senses.  Then  comes  his  second 
argument,  in  which  he  pleads  the  indestructi- 
bility of  the  soul  from  its  simplicity,  its  incom- 
posite  nature.  Then  Simmias  and  Cebes  interpose 
two  exquisitely  stated  difficulties  ;  one  suggest 


240  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

ing  that,  after  all,  the  soul  may  be  to  the  bod) 
what  the  music  is  to  the  lyre  ;  the  other  wonder- 
ing whether  the  body  may  not  possibly  outlive 
the  soul,  as  the  unthinking  cloth  outlives  the 
wise  and  skilful  weaver  by  whose  hand  it  was 
made.  Socrates  replies  to  both  of  them  and 
satisfies  them  ;  and  then  goes  on  to  his  third 
argument,  which  is  a  long  and  very  subtle  one 
about  ideas  and  their  accessory  attributes,  in 
which  he  tries  to  draw  the  distinction  between 
the  imperishable  idea  and  the  perishable  attri- 
butes of  life. 

These  are  his  arguments.  They  are  sur- 
rounded with  an  atmosphere  of  feeling.  Rev- 
erence and  gratitude  to  God,  affection  for  his 
disciples,  and  a  tender  sense  of  duty,  —  these 
play  around  and  through  the  whole  discussion 
and  give  it  softness  and  richness.  It  is  not  hard 
and  cold.  It  does  not  rely  wholly  upon  the 
worth  of  its  arguments  for  its  power.  That  is 
seen  in  the  fact  that,  though  the  arguments  in 
the  shape  in  which  Socrates  puts  them  would 
convince  no  man  of  the  truth  of  immortality 
to-day,  still  the  whole  scene  remains  as  one  of 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        241 

the  sacred  pictures  of  the  human  soul.  That 
prison  cell  is  one  of  the  temples  of  man's  faith, 
one  of  the  vestibules  of  immortality.  But  still 
the  discourse  is  an  argument.  It  is  a  search 
after  knowledge.  It  is  a  struggle  of  the  intel- 
lect. It  is  consoled  by  the  thought  of  a  divinity 
behind  it  which  will  make  allowance  for  its  de- 
ficiencies ;  but  it  feels  no  direct  and  present  in- 
fluence from  the  wisdom  of  that  divinity.  What 
it  knows  it  must  discover  for  itself,  and  hold, 
when  it  is  won,  as  an  intellectual  conviction. 
Now  turn  the  leaves  of  four  hundred  years,  and 
in  the  chamber  of  the  Passover  feel  the  differ- 
ence. As  Jesus  speaks,  argument  disappears. 
Conviction  is  attained  by  the  immediate  per- 
ception of  life  by  life.  "If  ye  had  known  Me, 
ye  should  have  known  My  Father  also,  and 
from  henceforth  ye  both  know  Him  and  have 
seen  Him."  "  In  My  Father's  house  are  many 
mansions :  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you." 
That  is  the  argument  of  Jesus  for  immortality. 
It  is  not  right  to  say  that  Socrates  appeals  to 
the  reason  and  fails,  while  Jesus  speaks  to  the 
heart  and  succeeds.  The  appeal  of  Jesus  is  to 

16 


242  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

the  reason,  too,  only  it  is  to  that  spiritual  reason 
which  is  no  special  function  of  the  nature,  but 
is  the  best  action  of  the  whole  nature  working 
together,  the  affection  and  the  will  being  the 
partners  of  the  brain  ;  or  rather,  for  that  does 
not  express  the  intimacy  of  their  life,  the  affec- 
tion and  the  will  being  one  manhood  with  the 
brain  and  sharing  its  intelligence.  The  difference 
of  result  is,  in  one  word,  the  difference  between  con- 
vincing the  intellect  and  making  the  man  believe. 
I  do  not  know  that  I  can  make  this  clearer, 
and  I  must  not  steal  the  time  to  quote  largely 
from  the  discourse  of  Jesus  in  support  of  what 
I  mean.  But  let  us  put  one  or  two  pairs  of  pas- 
sages together.  The  philosopher  asks,  "  Shall 
a  man  who  really  loves  knowledge,  and  who  is 
firmly  persuaded  that  he  shall  never  truly  attain 
it  except  in  Hades,  be  angry  and  sorry  to  have 
to  die  ? "  The  Son  of  God  says,  "  Now  I  go  to 
Him  that  sent  Me."  Socrates  says,  "Be  well 
assured  I  do  expect  this,  that  I  shall  be  among 
good  men,  though  this  I  do  not  feel  so  confident 
about ;  but  I  shall  go  to  gods  who  are  good  gov- 
ernors "  Jesus  cries,  "  Now,  O  Father,  glorify 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        243 

thou  Me  with  Thine  own  self."  Socrates  draws 
in  confused  but  elaborate  detail  the  road  to  Hades 
and  its  geography.  Jesus  says,  "  In  My  Father's 
house  are  many  mansions  "  ;  and,  "  Father,  I  will 
that  they  whom  Thou  hast  given  Me  be  with  Me 
where  I  am."  Socrates  is  noble  in  his  frank 
uncertainty  about  his  life.  "  Whether  I  tried  in. 
the  right  way  and  with  what  success  I  shall 
know  certainly  when  I  arrive  there,  if  it  please 
God."  Jesus  is  divine  in  His  certainty.  "  O 
righteous  Father,  the  world  hath  not  known 
Thee,  but  I  have  known  Thee."  "  I  have  fin- 
ished the  work  which  Thou  gavest  Me  to  do." 
Socrates  tells  of  a  "demon,"  or  angel,  who  has 
the  care  of  every  man  while  he  is  alive,  and 
when  he  is  dead  takes  him  to  the  place  of  judg- 
ment. Jesus  says,  "  I  will  pray  the  Father,  and 
He  shall  give  you  another  Comforter,  that  He 
may  abide  with  you  forever."  "  He  shall  testify 
of  Me."  The  sage  consoles  his  disciples  by  send- 
ing them  out  to  find  other  teachers.  "  Greece  is 
a  wide  place,  Cebes,  and  there  are  in  it  many 
goid  men.  And  there  are,  besides,  many  races 
of  barbarians,  all  of  whom  are  to  be  explored  in 


244  The  Influence  of  Jesus 


search  of  some  who  can  perform  such  a  charm 
as  we  have  spoken  of."  The  Savior  declares 
simply,  "  I  will  not  leave  you  comfortless.  I  will 
come  unto  you."  Socrates  says,  when  they  ask 
him  for  his  last  legacy,  "  If  you  take  good  care 
of  yourselves,  you  will  always  gratify  me  and 
mine  most."  Jesus  says,  "This  is  My  command- 
ment, that  ye  love  one  another  as  I  have  loved 
you."  And,  if  we  let  our  eye  run  out  beyond 
the  times  when  both  the  tragedies  —  the  tragedy 
of  Athens  and  the  tragedy  of  Jerusalem  —  were 
finished,  and  see  what  thoughts  of  the  two  suf- 
ferers were  left  behind  them,  we  hear  Phaedo 
closing  his  long  story  with  these  words :  "  This 
was  the  end,  Echecrates,  of  our  friend  :  of  all  the 
men  whom  we  have  known,  the  best,  the  wisest, 
and  the  most  just."  Nay;  before  the  poison  was 
given  by  the  jailer's  hand  we  hear  him  say  to  his 
great  prisoner,  "  I  have  found  you  the  most  gen- 
erous and  gentle  and  best  of  all  who  ever  came 
here."  And  then  our  thoughts  run  to  Jerusa- 
lem, and  hear  the  centurion  who  commanded  the 
soldiers  who  crucified  Jesus  say,  as  he  sees  the 
Crucified  give  up  the  ghost,  "  Truly  this  was 
the  Son  of  God." 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        245 

I  know  not  what  to  say  to  any  man  who  does 
not  feel  the  difference.  I  can  almost  dream 
what  Socrates  would  say  to  any  man  who  said 
there  was  no  difference  between  Jesus  and  him. 
But  how  shall  we  state  the  difference  ?  One 
is  divine  and  human  ;  the  other  is  human  only. 
One  is  Redeemer  ;  the  other  is  philosopher.  One 
is  inspired,  and  the  other  questions.  One  re- 
veals, and  the  other  argues.  These  statements, 
doubtless,  are  all  true.  And  in  them  all  there 
is  wrapped  up  this,  which  is  the  truth  of  all  the 
influence  of  Jesus  over  men's  minds,  that  where 
Socrates  brings  an  argument  to  meet  an  objec- 
tion, Jesus  always  brings  a  nature  to  meet  a  nat- 
ure, —  a  whole  being  which  the  truth  has  filled 
with  strength,  to  meet  another  whole  being  which 
error  has  filled  with  feebleness. 

I  must  hasten  on  to  speak  of  the  special 
characteristics  which  this  general  character  of 
His  teaching  gave  to  the  influence  which  Jesus 
exercised  over  the  intellectual  life  of  His  disci- 
ples. But  let  me  ask  you  first  to  remember  two 
notable  utterances  of  His,  in  which  He  distinctly 


246  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

stated  this  theory  of  the  mind  and  its  work,  which 
we  have  gathered  by  inference  from  many  of  His 
words.  One  of  them  is  in  those  words  which  it 
would  seem  as  if  a  great  deal  of  the  broadest 
and  best  religious  thought  of  our  age  had  almost 
taken  for  its  motto.  No  doubt,  like  all  mottoes, 
it  has  been  often  in  danger  of  losing  some  of 
its  profoundness  by  the  very  familiarity  which  it 
has  gained,  as  a  coin  loses  sharpness  by  the  con- 
stant circulation  which  proves  that  men  know 
its  value  ;  but,  on  the  whole,  I  do  not  know  what 
verse  there  is  in  the  New  Testament  which  any 
man  who  longed  to  see  the  intellect  of  men 
most  alive  and  most  thoroughly  consecrated  to 
the  best  uses,  would  sooner  choose  to  write  upon 
the  walls  of  his  thoughtful  century  than  that 
which  Jesus  spoke  in  the  Temple  about  the 
midst  of  the  feast :  "  If  any  man  will  do  My  will, 
He  shall  know  of  the  doctrine."  The  other 
passage  is  that  beautiful  account  of  the  simple 
and  humble  wonder  of  Judas,  not  Iscariot,-  who 
found  it  hard  to  believe  that  he  and  his  brother 
disciples  were  to  receive  enlightenments  from 
God  which  did  not  come  to  other  men.  And 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        247 

Jesus  went  on  to  explain  the  process  to  him. 
"If  a  man  love  Me,"  He  said,  "he  will  keep  My 
words,  and  My  Father  will  love  him,  and  We  will 
come  to  Him  and  make  our  abode  with  Him." 
Those,  I  think,  are  the  two  critical  passages  in 
which  Jesus  gives  us  His  doctrine  of  the  intel- 
lectual Jife.  They  are  as  clear  and  definite  as 
if  they  were  written  in  a  book  of  science.  They 
both  declare  that  in  the  highest  things  the  in- 
tellect can  never  work  alone  for  the  discovery  of 
truth.  Truth,  when  it  is  won,  is  the  possession 
of  the  whole  nature.  By  the  action  of  the  whole 
nature  only  can  it  be  gained.  The  king  must 
go  with  his  counsellors  at  his  side  and  his  army 
at  his  back,  or  he  makes  no  conquest.  The  in- 
tellect must  be  surrounded  by  the  richness  of  the 
affections  and  backed  by  the  power  of  the  will, 
or  it  attains  no  perfect  truth. 

Of  such  an  influence,  what  was  the  effect  on 
those  disciples  ?  What  sort  of  an  intellectual 
life  did  they  attain  ?  It  is  not  hard  to  point  out 
some,  at  least,  of  the  habits  of  mind  into  which 
Jesus  led  them.  The  first  is  their  habit  of  re- 
garding the  physical  world  as  the  utterance  of  a 


248  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

divine  will,  in  sympathy  with  the  divine  char- 
acter. There  are  two  ways  of  looking  at  the 
earth  which  have  divided  men  in  all  time.  The 
one  has  counted  it  something  outside  of  man, 
with  only  external  relation  to  him,  holding  him, 
feeding  him,  forcing  him  to  work.  The  other 
has  counted  it  in  some  true  sense  a  medium  of 
revelation  and  influence  from  God  to  man.  The 
first  view  is  the  view  of  science,  and  is  always 
tending  to  hard  superficialness,  to  the  spiritual 
poverty  of  the  fingering  slave  who  will  "  peep  and 
botanize  upon  his  mother's  grave."  The  other 
view  is  the  view  of  poetry,  and  its  corrupt  ten- 
dency is  toward  superstition,  —  toward  that  exces- 
sive human  self-consciousness  which  thinks  that 
stars  move  and  winds  blow  only  to  bring  us  mes- 
sages out  of  the  unseen  world.  Between  these  two 
conceptions  of  nature  all  human  thought  divides. 
"Poetry,"  says  Coleridge,  "is  not  the  proper  an- 
tithesis to  prose,  but  to  science."  Science  looks 
to  the  world  for  facts  and  knowledge  ;  poetry 
asks  of  it  influence  and  character.  Science  han- 
dles the  material;  poetry  questions  the  creative 
soul  within  Each  has  its  proper  business  with 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        249 

this  wondrous  earth.  Each  makes  its  admirable 
kind  of  man.  Sometimes,  though  very  rarely, 
the  two  meet  in  the  same  man ;  but  never  so 
that  one  or  the  other  is  not  in  clear  preponder- 
ance and  does  not  give  a  distinct  color  to  the 
character.  Now  of  the  Apostles  there  can  be  no 
doubt  which  view  of  the  earth  their  Lord  had 
led  them  to.  His  parables,  —  the  stories  of  the 
wheat  and  tares  in  the  field,  of  the  fig-tree  on  the 
hillside,  of  the  sheep  wandering  in  the  moun- 
tains, of  the  net  dragged  through  the  rushing 
waters  of  the  lake,  —  all  of  them  were  poems  ;  all 
of  them  sought  in  nature  not  the  form,  but  the 
soul,  not  the  shape,  but  the  meaning.  And 
when  the  disciples  wanted  to  call  down  the  fire 
from  heaven  to  destroy  a  village  of  the  Samari- 
tans where  Jesus  had  not  been  received,  it  was 
the  poetic  thought  of  nature  that  was  in  their 
minds.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  unscien- 
tific. It  was  very  crude  and  ignorant,  —  poor 
poetry,  poor  sense  of  the  meaning  of  the  natural 
forces,  of  the  purpose  of  the  heavens  and  their 
fire,  and  of  the  way  in  which  their  power  could 
be  shown,  —  but  it  was  the  crudeness  of  the 


250  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

poet,  not  of  the  scientist ;  it  was  the  vague  and 
coarse  effort  of  that  same  power  which,  made 
clear  and  fine,  enabled  them  to  understand  the 
parables  of  Jesus  and  not  to  be  offended  at  His 
miracles,  —  which  finally  prepared  them  for  the 
resurrection,  and  made  St.  Matthew  not  afraid 
to  write  that  when  Jesus  expired  on  the  cross 
the  earth  quaked,  and  the  rocks  rent,  and  the 
graves  were  opened. 

To  this  same  spirit  it  belonged  to  easily  ac- 
knowledge mystery,  or  the  largeness  of  life,  its 
necessary  extension  into  regions  which  they  had 
not  explored.  Men  are  made  quite  as  much  by 
their  sense  of  what  there  is  in  the  world  which 
they  do  not  know,  as  by  the  few  truths  of  which 
they  think  that  they  have  gained  the  mastery. 
The  outlook  into  mystery  has  even  a  stronger  in- 
tellectual influence  than  the  inspection  of  discov- 
ered fact.  The  sin  with  which  Jesus  was  always 
upbraiding  the  Pharisees  —  what  He  called  hy- 
pocrisjj—  is  at  once  a  spiritual  and  an  intellectual 
vice.  It  was  a  disbelief  of  the  greatness  of  God 
which  made  it  possible  for  them  to  dream  of 
imposing  upon  Him.  It  was  a  pride  in  then 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        251 

selves  which  could  not  look  into  the  vastness  of 
truth.  The  unbelief  which  Jesus  upbraids  is  not 
the  doubt  of  special  doctrine,  but  that  narrow 
and  worldly  temper  to  which  the  whole  world  of 
mystery  was  inconceivable.  The  doubter  whom 
Christ  rebukes  is  not  the  earnest  and  eager  be- 
liever who  has  become  lost  in  the  highways  of 
faith.  It  is  the  unventuresome  spirit  which  is 
incapable  of  faith  at  all,  which  has  reduced  the 
world  to  materialism  like  the  Sadducee,  or  made 
duty  into  law  and  religion  into  ceremony  like 
the  Pharisee.  For  neither  of  them  was  there 
any  outlook.  For  His  disciples,  the  word  of 
intellectual  life,  as  of  moral  discipline,  was 
"Watch."  "Expect  new  things.  The  world  is 
large.  Out  of  the  darkness  shall  come  light. 
Be  ready  for  surprises."  Such  readiness  is  the 
rightful  possession  only  of  men  who  live  not  in 
the  forms  but  in  the  principles  of  things  ;  and  so 
the  spiritual  thoroughness  into  which  Jesus  led 
His  disciples  is  bound  up  closely  with  the  intel 
lectual  progress  which  they  attained. 

Again,   Jesus   inspired    them   with    His   own 
view  of  the  actual  condition  of  things  around 


252  The  Influen:e  of  Jesus 

them,  and  of  the  way  in  which  the  better  life  of 
the  world  was  to  come.  The  character  of  Christ's 
own  reforming  spirit  was  clear  enough.  He  said 
that  He  wanted  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil  the 
agencies  which  He  found  here  in  the  world.  He 
never  cared  to  reshape  circumstances  until  He 
had  regenerated  men.  He  let  the  shell  stand  as 
He  found  it  until  the  new  life  within  could  burst 
it  for  itself.  It  is  very  wonderful  to  me  to  see 
how  thoroughly  His  disciples  caught  His  method. 
They  could  not  have  caught  it  so  completely  and 
so  soon  if  it  had  not  been  that  it  was  based  on 
a  large  principle,  if  it  had  not  been  more  than  a 
special  trick  or  tact.  Almost  instantly,  as  soon 
as  the  disciples  began  their  work,  they  seem  to 
have  been  filled  with  a  true  conception  of  its 
divine  method,  —  that  not  from  outside,  but  from 
inside  ;  not  by  the  remodelling  of  institutions, 
but  by  the  change  of  character  ;  not  by  the  sup- 
pression of  vices,  but  by  the  destruction  of  sin, 
the  world  was  to  be  saved.  That  truth  with 
whose  vitality  all  modern  life  has  flourished,  with 
the  forgetfulness  of  which  all  modern  history 
has  always  tended  to  corruption,  that  truth  only 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        253 

dreamed  of  by  a  few  spiritual  philosophers  in  the 
ancient  world,  —  it  is  one  of  the  marvellous  phe- 
nomena of  human  thought,  that  it  should  have 
leaped  full-grown  to  life  with  the  first  influence 
of  Christianity.  A  few  faint  flutterings  about 
the  old  methods  of  repression,  and  the  disciples 
of  Jesus  settle  at  once  to  the  new  methods  of 
development. 

Another  of  the  intellectual  habits  which 
naturally  grew  out  of  the  first  principles  of  Jesus 
was  His  discovery  of  interest  in  people  whom 
the  world  generally  would  have  found  most  un- 
interesting. And  this  same  habit,  passing  over 
into  His  disciples,  made  the  wide  and  democratic 
character  of  the  new  faith.  There  are  signs 
enough  that  Jesus  had  His  special  feelings  to- 
wards these  men  who  were  most  congenial  to 
Him.  As  the  most  prominent  of  all  such  signs, 
we  all  remember  His  peculiar  love  for  the  per- 
ceptive and  appreciative  John.  At  the  table  of 
the  Last  Supper,  by  the  cross  from  which  the 
Sufferer  looked  down  on  His  few  faithful  friends, 
on  the  morning  of  the  resurrection,  at  the  Sea 
of  Tiberias,  where  the  risen  Jesus  met  the  famil- 


254  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

iar  company  again,  —  everywhere  John  appears  as 
the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved.  We  cannot  pic- 
ture to  ourselves  a  character  so  definite  as  that 
of  Jesus  which  should  be  destitute  )f  such  affin- 
ities ;  and  yet,  always,  as  we  read  the  Gospels, 
there  is  a  larger  fact  behind  this  special  friend- 
ship, —  there  is  a  value  of  human  nature  and  of 
all  men  who  bear  it,  on  the  bosom  of  which  this 
special  friendship  floats  like  a  mere  accident. 
The  result  is,  a  true  freedom  from  fastidiousness, 
a  breadth  and  quickness  of  sympathy  and  hope 
which  gives  a  singular  largeness  to  the  intellec- 
tual life  of  Jesus,  which  we  all  recognize.  Some- 
thing of  the  same  sort  begins  to  show  itself  at 
once  in  His  disciples.  I  do  not  know  how  we 
better  can  describe  it  than  by  saying  that  it 
keeps  all  the  warmth  and  directness  of  personal 
intercourse  without  its  distortions  and  partiali- 
ties. This  is  an  intellectual  as  well  as  a  spiritual 
condition.  It  keeps  thought  and  observation 
large,  and  makes  the  judgment  at  once  earnest 
and  true.  It  is  the  power  that  redeems  the 
mind  from  narrowness  while  it  still  keeps  it  eager 
and  intense. 


On  the  Intellect. lal  Life  of  Man.        255 

There  is  one  other  habit  which  character- 
ized always  the  thought  of  Jesus,  and  which  alsc 
passed  out  from  Him  to  his  disciples.  It  is  not 
easy  to  describe,  but  it  seems  to  consist  in  a  con- 
stant progress  from  the  arbitrary  and  special  to 
the  essential  and  universal  forms  of  thought.  In 
one  part  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  this  habit 
of  Jesus  is  supremely  manifest.  It  is  told  in  the 
fifth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew.  The  Pharisees  — 
those  dull  and  earthly  spirits  who  yet  have  drawn 
forth  for  us  the  divinest  words  of  Jesus  —  had 
followed  the  great  Teacher  and  were  persecuting 
Him  with  questions.  Those  questions  were  all 
of  the  same  sort.  They  all  began  with  some 
special  law,  sometimes  of  the  Old  Testament, 
sometimes  of  the  Rabbinical  traditions,  and  went 
on  to  the  inevitable  conflict  of  that  law  in  its 
letter  with  the  conditions  of  human  life.  The 
law  was  good,  but  the  mere  letter  of  the  law  be- 
came exhausted  or  confused  before  it  had  accom- 
plished the  purpose  for  which  the  law  was 
evidently  made.  Jesus  takes  each  of  these  laws 
and  opens  it.  Its  principle  appears  underneath 
its  letter.  It  is  seen  to  be  no  arbitrary  enact- 


256  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

ment  for  the  settlement  of  a  special  difficulty,  but 
an  essential  truth,  true  everywhere.  For  in- 
stance, the  prohibition  of  murder  opens  into  the 
picture  of  a  vigorous  and  vital  peace  out  of  which 
all  malice  and  hatred  should  have  faded  away, 
The  prohibition  of  adultery  enlarges  itself  into 
the  picture  of  a  world  all  bright  with  purity. 
The  command  to  perform  an  oath  expands  into 
the  promise  of  a  life  so  simply  pure  and  faithful 
that  in  it  no  oath  should  ever  need  be  spoken. 
The  "  eye  for  an  eye,  and  tooth  for  a  tooth  " 
changes  into  "  resist  not  evil,"  and  men  see  how 
all  justice  has  mercy  at  its  heart.  There  is  noth- 
ing that  marks  the  limits  of  men's  intellectual  life 
more  than  the  degree  in  which  they  have  the 
power  of  this  progress  from  the  local  to  the  uni- 
versal, from  the  partial  to  the  complete.  All 
thought,  like  all  life,  must  begin  with  specialness, 
must  fasten  itself  upon  one  point  of  the  great 
earth;  but  just  as  Jesus  in  his  influence  upon 
our  race  has  left  behind  Judea  and  its  geography 
and  gone  forth  to  become  the  possession  of  the 
world,  so  it  would  seem  as  if  His  teaching  were 
always  starting  from  special  problems  only  to 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        257 

extend  itself  to  the  great  principles  which  under- 
lie those  problems  and  which  have  their  applica- 
tions throughout  all  human  life. 

Indeed,  I  think  that  the  figure  which  1  just 
suggested  is  one  that  may  give  us  a  good  deU  of 
light.  I  remember  years  ago  how  the  first  sight 
of  Palestine  seemed  to  adjust  for  me  the  two 
thoughts  of  the  local  and  the  universal  Christ  as 
I  had  never  been  able  to  adjust  them  before. 
As  one  travels  through  that  land,  the  New  Tes- 
tament story  is  rescued  from  vagueness  and  ob- 
scurity, and  the  historic  life  becomes  a  clear  and 
realized  fact ;  while  at  the  same  time  the  poverty 
of  the  country,  the  failure  of  the  material  to  sat- 
isfy and  account  for  and  accompany  the  spiritual, 
sets  one  free  for  a  larger  and  truer  grasping  of 
the  Divine  power.  It  is  like  the  relation  between 
an  immortal  word  and  the  mortal  lips  that  uttered 
it.  The  lips  die,  and  you  look  at  them  when  they 
are  dead,  and  see  at  once  how  they  were  made  to 
speak  the  word,  how  their  whole  mechanism  was 
Inii't  for  it,  and  yet  how,  even  while  they  uttered 
it,  they  were  dying  in  giving  expression  to  what 
by  its  very  nature  was  eternal.  So  Palestine,  the 
17 


258  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

home-land  of  Jesus,  opens  into  Christendom;  and 
so  each  arbitrary  command  and  special  revelation 
which  He  gave  opens  into  eternal  principles  and 
universal  truths. 

A  poetic  conception  of  the  world  we  live  in, 
a  willing  acceptance  of  mystery,  an  expectation 
of  progress  by  development,  an  absence  of 
fastidiousness  that  comes  from  a  sense  of  the 
possibilities  of  all  humanity,  and  a  perpetual 
enlargement  of  thought  from  the  arbitrary  into 
the  essential,  — these,  then,  I  think,  are  the  intel- 
lectual characteristics  which  Christ's  disciples 
gathered  from  their  Master;  and  I  think  that  we 
can  see  that  these  characteristics  make,  as  we  set 
them  all  together,  a  certain  definite  and  recog- 
nizable type  of  mental  life,  one  that  we  should 
know  from  every  other  if  we  met  to-day  a  man 
in  whom  it  was  embodied.  It  is  a  type  in  which, 
according  to  the  description  which  I  tried  to  give, 
the  intellect,  while  it  is  plentifully  present,  does 
not  stand  alone  and  force  itself  upon  our  thought 
It  is  a  type  in  which  character  is  the  result  that 
impresses  us,  —  character  holding  in  harmony  all 
the  elements  of  the  nature,  rather  than  intellect 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        259 

uality,  which  is  the  predominant  presence  of  one 
clement.  It  is  a  type  in  which  righteousness  and 
reason  so  coincide  and  co-operate  that  you  can- 
not separate  them,  and  do  not  want  to.  It  is  a 
type  of  life  in  which,  fulfilling  the  conjunction 
which  David  loved  so  much  to  describe,  "  Mercy 
and  Truth  are  met  together." 

If  I  have  rightly  traced  the  general  character 
of  the  mental  life  and  influence  of  Jesus,  we  are 
prepared  now,  I  think,  to  bring  it  home  into  asso- 
ciation with  that  which  through  all  these  lectures 
we  have  held  to  be  the  central  and  formative  idea 
of  Jesus.  I  have  drawn  the  indications  of  His 
intellectual  character  from  what  is  told  us  in 
the  Gospel  of  John.  One  key-word,  truth,  ap- 
pears, as  I  said,  upon  His  lips,  almost  exclusively 
in  that  book.  And  now  in  that  same  book  it  is 
almost  alone  that  Jesus  is  always  calling  God  His 
Father.  Mark  does  not  quote  at  all  such  words, 
and  Matthew  and  Luke  quote  them  very  seldom. 
The  two,  then,  go  together.  That  same  pro- 
founder  insight  into  the  mind  of  Jesus  which  sees 
His  intellectual  life  and  influence  not  standing 
alone,  but  part  of  the  whole  nature,  seizes  also 


260  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

upon  that  representation  which  sums  up  His 
whole  life  as  the  life  of  a  son  lived  in  the  house- 
hold of  his  father.  And  we  can  see  ourselves 
why  this  is  so.  As  soon  as  we  unite  in  our  minds 
the  various  characteristics  which  we  have  seen 
to  belong  to  the  intellectuality  of  Jesus,  and  then 
look  about  the  world  for  any  picture  of  an  intel- 
lectual life  which  shall  present  to  us,  however 
faintly,  the  total  impression  which  they  make,  we 
find  ourselves  drawn  at  once  to  the  learning 
child  in  His  Father's  house.  The  poetic  concep- 
tion of  the  world,  the  satisfied  acceptance  of  mys- 
tery, the  constant  thought  of  development,  the 
absence  of  fastidiousness,  and  the  perpetual  open- 
ing of  the  arbitrary  into  the  essential,  —  all  of 
these  blend  most  healthily  in  that  primary  type 
of  intellectual  influence  which  is  seen  wherever 
a  docile  child  stands  learning  truth  within  his 
father's  house.  It  is  no  hard  touch  of  intellect 
on  intellect.  It  is  a  warm  approach  of  life  to  life, 
in  which  it  is  not  merely  knowledge  but  charac- 
ter, in  which  knowledge  is  held  in  solution,  that 
passes  over  from  the  wiser  to  the  foolisher.  If 
this  be  true,  then  see  what  we  have  reached 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        20 1 

Here  at  the  bottom  of  His  intellectual  life  and 
influence,  as  at  the  bottom  of  all  His  other  life 
and  influence,  lies  the  idea  of  Jesus.  Still  before 
all  things,  at  the  root  and  source  of  everything 
else  that  He  is,  He  is  the  Son  of  God.  Once, 
when  they  would  not  understand  Him,  He  turned 
sadly  and  looked  forward  past  the  crucifixion  into 
the  prospect  of  a  fuller  comprehension  of  it, 
which,  it  may  be,  we  are  only  now  beginning  to 
attain  ;  and  as  He  pictured  it  to  his  hope,  this 
truth  of  His  Sonship  lay  at  the  bottom  of  it. 
"  When  ye  have  lifted  up  the  Son  of  Man,"  He 
said,  "  then  shall  ye  know  that  I  am  He,  and  that 
I  do  nothing  of  Myself,  but  as  My  Father  hath 
taught  Me  I  speak  these  things."  At  the  bottom 
of  His  whole  conception  of  intellectual  life  lies 
the  never- failing,  never-fading  consciousness  that 
He  is  the  child  of  God.  You  touch  some  flower 
of  a  parable,  you  are  pierced  by  the  sharp  thorn 
of  some  rebuke,  and  when  you  ask  for  the  secret  of 
the  sweetness  or  the  pain  you  find  it  in  the  life- 
blood  of  this  idea  that  comes  up  out  of  the 
deep  heart  of  His  life.  You  ask  yourself  what 
is  the  one  quality  that  you  must  put  into  the 


262  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

wonderful  talk  of  Socrates  to  make  it  approach 
the  vastly  more  wonderful  talk  of  Jesus,  and  you 
can  name  nothing  but  this,  so  wholly  lacking  in 
the  sage  of  Athens,  so  totally  pervading  every 
word  of  the  Man  of  Palestine,  —  the  consciousness 
that  He  is  God's  child,  knowing  God  as  a  son 
knows  a  father,  speaking  with  an  authority  which 
no  scribe  can  have,  not  because  He  knows  more 
things,  but  because  He  knows  everything  differ- 
ently in  that  ever-present  sense  of  Sonship. 

There  is  one  short  story  in  the  Gospel  of  St. 
John,  which,  if  we  had  the  time  to  study  it  in 
detail,  would  teem  with  illustration  of  what  I 
have  been  saying.  It  is  the  story  of  Nicodemus, 
—  a  very  precious  passage  for  the  understanding 
of  the  intellectual  method,  of  Jesus.  Nicodemus 
is  one  of  St.  John's  men.  Neither  of  the  other 
writers  is  drawn  to  him.  But  St.  John  seems,  as 
he  writes  the  narrative,  to  feel  that  he  is  opening 
to  us  his  Master's  very  heart.  If  we  had  time 
to  dwell  minutely  on  the  story,  we  should  see 
how  Jesus  does  for  Nicodemus  the  three  things 
which  every  thorough  teacher  must  do  for  every 
scholar.  He  gives  him  new  ideas,  He  deepens 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        263 

with  these  ideas  his  personal  character  and  re- 
sponsibility, and  He  builds  for  him  new  rela- 
tions with  his  fellow-men.  When  Nicodemus 
goes  away  from  Jesus,  he  carries  with  him  the 
new  truth  of  regeneration ;  he  is  trembling  with 
the  sense  that,  to  make  that  truth  thoroughly 
his,  he  himself  must  be  a  better  man  ;  and  by 
and  by  he  is  seen  setting  himself  against  the 
current  of  his  fellow-judges  to  speak  a  word  for 
the  Master  who  had  spoken  such  educating 
words  to  him.  These  are  the  elements  that 
make  up  the  effect  of  all  effective  influence,  — 
new  truth,  new  character,  new  duty,  not  distinct, 
not  distinguishable  from  each  other,  but  all 
mingled  in  one  complete  change  and  eleva- 
tion of  the  man's  whole  nature.  And  when 
we  look  for  the  spring  on  which  Christ  laid 
His  hand  for  such  a  comprehensive  awakening 
of  the  man's  life,  we  find  it  where  we  should 
have  looked  for  it,  in  the  truth  of  sonship 
brought  to  the  world  in  Him,  —  "  God  so  loved 
the  world  that  He  gave  His  only-begotten  Son." 
There  is  an  old  legend  which  says  that  Nico- 
demus and  Gamaliel  and  St.  Stephen  were 


264  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

buried  close  together,  and  that  years  afterwards 
their  bodies  were  found  side  by  side.  In  a  cer- 
tain way  they  belong  together.  They  were  all 
students  of  the  things  of  God,  various  types  of 
sacred  wisdom.  But  if  we  want  to  rate  them 
rightly,  we  shall  find  the  fineness  and  the  lofti- 
ness of  their  intellectual  life  to  stand  just  in  pro- 
portion to  the  fulness  and  clearness  with  which 
at  the  heart  of  each  man's  knowledge  lay  the 
idea  of  Jesus,  that  man  is  the  son  of  God. 

I  want  to  spend  what  little  time  is  yet  left  me 
in  this  lecture  and  this  course  in  trying  to  trace 
the  presence  in  all  the  intellectual  life  of  Chris- 
tendom of  those  peculiar  characteristics,  or  rather 
of  that  peculiar  character,  which  we  have  seen 
to-day  to  belong  to  the  intellectual  life  of  Jesus  and 
His  disciples.  Christ's  method  of  knowledge  has 
been  always  present  under  the  currents  of  modern 
thought  and  the  impulses  of  modern  study,  and 
he  who  watches  closely  can  see  how  they  bear 
witness  to  its  presence  even  while  they  are  not 
conscious  of  it  as  they  move  upon  its  bosom.  In 
one  brief  statement  of  it,  the  method  of  Jesus 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        265 

may  be  summed  up  thus :  At  the  bottom  of  all 
truth  lies  the  truth  of  truths,  that  man  is  the 
child  of  God.  All  that  man  knows  is  really  a 
knowing  of  his  Father,  and  can  be  thoroughly 
won  only  by  obedience.  And  so  the  moral,  the 
spiritual,  and  the  intellectual  lives  are  one. 

The  first  consequence  of  the  constant  presence 
of  this  method  is  in  a  continual  struggle  after 
symmetry  in  the  intellectual  action  of  mankind. 
The  tendency  of  modern  times,  often  thwarted 
and  defeated,  is  not  to  be  thoroughly  and  finally 
content  with  one-sided  development,  with  the 
use  and  development  of  certain  special  faculties 
of  men.  Sometimes  this  symmetry  will  be  con- 
ceived of  as  something  only  to  be  attained  by 
the  race  at  large  ;  others,  more  bold  and  ideal- 
istic, will  dare  to  anticipate  it  even  for  the  indi- 
vidual ;  but  before  all  men  who  watch  the  human 
intellect  there  will  hover  a  dream  of  the  fulfilment 
of  human  life  on  every  side,  of  the  ultimate  shaping 
of  a  symmetrical  manhood  in  which  the  functions 
which  seem  contrary  or  independent  shall  be 
brought  into  absolute  harmony  and  co-operation. 
Lacordaire  writes  of  the  "tortures  of  conscience 


266  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

struggling  with  genius."  The  highest  Christian 
hope  for  man  pictures  the  issue  of  that  struggle 
in  a  lofty  peace  where  both  shall  find  their  per- 
fect satisfaction.  Goldsmith,  when  he  dedicates 
his  comedy  of  "She  Stoops  to  Conquer"  to  Dr. 
Johnson,  says,  "  It  may  serve  the  interests  of 
mankind,  also,  to  inform  them  that  the  greatest 
wit  may  be  found  in  a  character  without  impair- 
ing the  most  affected  piety."  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  a  somewhat  finer  wit  and  a  somewhat 
loftier  piety  than  the  great  London  sage  pos- 
sessed must  not  be  shown  before  the  harmony  of 
wit  and  piety  shall  be  complete;  but  no  man  who 
is  a  Christian  is  willing  to  accept  an  impious  wit 
or  a  witless  piety  as  the  final  accomplishment  of 
man,  and  all  modern  education,  while  it  some- 
times seems  to  attempt  their  union  only  by  the 
rapid  succession,  and  not  by  the  harmonious 
mingling  of  the  scientific  and  the  moral  instruc- 
tions, acknowledges  that  both  are  necessary  to 
the  perfect  man. 

Again,  the  Christian  thought  of  knowledge 
must  always  seek,  not  merely  symmetry  in  the 
knowing  man,  but  also  harmony  in  all  the  knowl- 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        267 

edge  he  can  win.  Under  one  fatherhood  the 
whole  world  becomes  sacred.  The  old  distinc- 
tions of  useful  and  useless  knowledge  will  not 
hold.  The  responsibility  of  each  man  for  the 
working  of  his  intellect  must  be  acknowledged. 
The  sin  of  mental  carelessness  or  wilfulness  must 
take  its  place  among  the  sins  against  which  men 
struggle  and  for  which  they  repent.  The  appli- 
cation of  moral  standards  to  history,  to  art,  and 
to  pure  letters  must  be  learned  and  taught.  The 
isolation  of  the  artistic  impulse  from  all  moral 
judgments  and  purposes  must  be  restrained  and 
remedied.  The  whole  thought  of  art  must  be 
enlarged  and  mellowed  till  it  develops  a  relation 
to  the  spiritual  and  moral  natures  as  well  as  to 
the  senses  of  mankind.  It  will  lose,  perhaps,  the 
purity  and  simplicity  which  has  belonged  to  the 
idea  of  art  in  classic  and  unchristian  times,  but 
it  will  become  more  and  more  a  part  of  the  gen- 
eral culture  of  human  life.  That  is  the  change 
which  has  come  between  the  Venus  of  Milo  and 
the  Moses  of  Michael  Angelo ;  between  the 
Iliad  and  Paradise  Lost ;  between  the  Idyls  of 
Theocritus  and  the  best  modern  novel.  Mere 


268  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

simplicity  of  method  and  effect  have  given  place 
to  harmony  of  method  and  effect,  littleness  to 
largeness,  fastidiousness  to  sympathy,  and  the 
Christian  world  has  really  learned  more  and  more 
to  believe  what  the  Christian  poet  sang,  that 

"  He  who  feels  contempt 
For  any  living  thing,  hath  faculties 
That  he  hath  never  used  :  and  Thought  with  him 
Is  in  its  infancy." 

Another  truth  which  modern  and  Christian 
thought  must  make  more  and  more  of  as  it 
grows  riper  is  the  immediateness  of  divine  influ- 
ence. The  ancient  poet  invoked  his  muse  as  he 
began  his  poem,  but  the  invocation  must  have 
meant  very  little  to  him.  It  was  the  striking  of 
the  strings  before  he  settled  into  the  full  strain 
he  meant  to  play  ;  as  if  he  said  to  the  world, 
"  Listen,  for  I  am  ready  with  my  song."  The 
Christian  thinker  summons  no  muse,  but  as  he 
speaks  there  is  a  sense  of  something  vast  behind 
him  out  of  which  influences  come  to  him;  there 
is  conviction  which  is  not  born  out  of  mere 
self-conceit ;  there  is  earnestness  which  is  not 
the  self-excitement  of  the  Pythian  damsel  on  her 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        269 

tripod.  There  is  in  all  men  who  command  the 
ears  of  other  men  a  sense  of  something  behind 
them  —  some  call  it  truth,  some  call  it  God  — 
for  which,  for  whom,  they  speak.  This  is  the 
loftier  tone  in  modern  speculation.  This  is  the 
feminine  element  in  modern  thought,  perpetually 
inspiring  and  leading  and  lifting  that  masculine 
reason, 

"Whose  halting  wisdom  after  knows 
What  her  diviner  virtue  fore  discerns." 

The  intellectual  life  of  Christendom,  again, 
tends  to  democracy.  Less  and  less  will  it  con- 
sent to  be  the  privilege  of  the  selected  few. 
The  fact  is  plain.  The  reason  of  the  fact  is  no 
less  clear  to  one  who  traces  the  idea  of  Jesus 
everywhere.  It  is  impossible  to  keep  the  bounds 
of  mental  life  shut  against  any  man  when  the 
source  of  all  men's  knowledge  is  in  God,  whc 
is  the  Father  of  us  all,  and  when  the  faculty  of 
knowledge  is  closely  connected  with  the  faculty 
of  moral  obedience,  which  is  the  right  and  duty 
of  mankind.  Instantly  this  began  when  Chris- 
tianity was  once  a  living  fact.  Peter  stepped 
out  of  the  chamber  of  the  Pentecost  and  spoke 


2/o  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

to  the  great  multitude  in  words  which  assumed 
in  them  the  power  of  understanding,  of  judging, 
of  deciding  questions  which  up  to  that  time  had 
been  the  sacred  possession  of  the  scribes  and 
doctors.  There  was  nothing  like  that  speech 
before  that  day.  The  germs  of  the  modern  ser- 
mon, the  modern  lecture,  and  the  modern  school 
were  in  it.  Thenceforth  men's  intellects  might 
differ,  but  the  intellectual  chance  was  open  to 
every  man.  To  the  dullest  child  belonged  the 
right  to  learn  all  that  he  could  learn,  all  that  it 
was  in  him  to  learn,  of  His  Father. 

And  yet  once  more.  The  everlasting  progress 
of  knowledge  was  assured.  Once  stretch  an  in- 
finite life  behind  our  human  lives,  on  which  they 
rest,  in  which  they  belong,  and  how  the  everlast- 
ing contradiction  between  the  little  that  we  know 
already,  and  the  vast  uncertain  bulk  of  what 
we  do  not  know,  is  robbed  of  its  oppressive- 
ness. There  are  two  classes  of  men,  with  two 
dispositions,  which  come  from  that  contradiction. 
One  man,  frightened  at  the  great  bulk  of 
ignorance,  refuses  to  look  it  in  the  face,  flees 
for  the  preservation  of  his  self-content  to  the 


Ou  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        271 

little  that  he  knows,  makes  believe  that  that  is 
all  there  is  to  know,  and  refuses  to  hear  of  any 
more.  He  is  the  bigot  who  lives  through  all  the 
ages  and  is  found  in  every  climate  of  the  globe 
and  every  region  of  human  study.  Another 
man  is  so  fascinated  by  the  unknown  that  he 
refuses  to  place  value  on  the  known.  The  little 
which  man  has  gained  amounts  to  nothing.  And 
with  the  depreciation  of  all  present  knowledge 
comes  the  loss  of  any  solid  starting-point  for 
advance  into  the  great  vague  world  that  lies  be- 
yond. He  is  the  sceptic  who  mocks  the  bigot 
for  his  obstructiveness,  and  yet  himself  makes 
no  progress  because  he  has  no  foothold  from 
which  he  can  move.  It  is  like  the  vague  air 
taunting  the  solid  rock.  If  in  our  modern  Chris- 
tian times  there  is  a  better  spirit  than  either  of 
these  men  can  show ;  if  it  is  not  necessary  for 
us  that  we  should  be  bigots  or  sceptics  either  ; 
if  it  is  possible  for  us  to  value  every  fragment  of 
knowledge,  not  for  itself  alone,  but  for  the  whole, 
of  which  it  is  a  part,  and  which  it  prophecies  and 
promises ;  if,  as  we  gaze  into  the  darkness  of  the 


272  The  Influence  of  Jesus 

unknown  we  are  not  paralyzed,  but  inspired,  be- 
cause in  what  we  know  already  we  hold  the  clew 
which,  as  it  runs  out  into  the  darkness,  we  can 
feel  fastened  at  the  other  end  to  the  throne  around 
which  burns  the  unapproachable  light  oi  perfect 
knowledge  toward  which  we  may  freely  and 
eternally  advance,  —  the  reason  of  it  all  must  be 
that  the  idea  of  Jesus  has  bound  our  ignorance 
and  the  knowledge  of  God  together,  and  made  it 
possible  for  man  so  to  count  all  that  his  Father 
knows  as  the  great  region  for  his  soul  to  grow  in, 
and  so  to  value  the  little  he  knows  as  the  gift 
and  pledge  and  promise  of  his  Father,  who  knows 
all,  that  he  can  neither  be  proud  of  his  own  wis- 
dom nor  be  dismayed  before  his  own  ignorance  ; 
but  must  live,  as  the  child  lives  in  his  father's 
house,  the  happy  life  of  complete  humility  and 
unlimited  hope. 

I  must  not  linger  at  the  close.  If  in  these 
lectures  I  have  failed  to  show  that  which  it  has 
been  upon  my  mind  and  heart  to  describe,  I 
shall  not  in  a  few  last  words  redeem  my  failure. 


On  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man.        273 

I  dare  not,  I  do  not  hope  that  I  have  succeeded  ; 
but  I  hope  that  I  have  not  wholly  failed.  For 
to  me  what  I  have  tried  to  say  is  more  and  more 
the  glory  and  the  richness  and  the  sweetness  of 
all  life.  The  idea  of  Jesus  is  the  illumination  and 
the  inspiration  of  existence.  Without  it  moral 
life  becomes  a  barren  expediency,  and  social  life 
a  hollow  shell,  and  emotional  life  a  meaningless 
excitement,  and  intellectual  life  an  'rile  play  or 
stupid  drudgery.  Without  it  the  world  is  a  puz- 
zle, and  death  a  horror,  and  eternity  a  blank. 
More  and  more  it  shines  the  only  hope  of  what 
without  it  is  all  darkness.  More  and  more  the 
wild,  sad,  frightened  cries  of  men  who  believe 
nothing,  and  the  calm,  earnest,  patient  prayers 
of  men  who  believe  so  much  that  they  long  for 
perfect  faith,  seem  to  blend  into  the  great  appeal 
which  Philip  of  Bethsaida  made  to  Jesus  at  that 
Last  Supper,  where  so  much  of  our  time  in  these 
four  hours  has  been  spent,  —  "  Lord,  show  us  the 
Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us."  And  more  and  more 
the  only  answer  to  that  appeal  seems  to  come 
from  the  same  blessed  lips  that  answered  Philip, 


274  The  Influence  of  Jesus. 

the  lips  of  the  Mediator  Jesus,  who  replies,  "  Have 
I  been  so  long  with  you  and  yet  hast  thou  not 
known  Me  ?  He  that  hath  seen  Me  hath  seen 
the  Father." 


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